Comments

The idea that Phoenix's growth can be attributed to aesthetic judgements is laughable. Phoenix's growth is underpinned by the damming of the Colorado river and the mining of ground water aquifers. Over a third of the city's water usage comes from these aquifers which the Arizona Dept of Water Resources describes thus: "Throughout this Century, groundwater has been pumped out more rapidly than it is being replenished, creating a condition called overdraft. Though a large amount of water remains stored in Arizona's aquifers, its availability is limited by location, depth and quality. By continuing to overdraft the state's groundwater supplies, we challenge our ability to ensure a secure water supply for the future." www.azwater.gov/dwr/Content/Publications/files/supplydemand.pdf So while the city is host to some sensible water initiatives (such as re-using treated effluent) to reduce its environmental impact, we're still left with the clear impression that this growth - described with something approaching rapture by Mr Salt - is unsustainable. Having a desert style garden might be nice but it's no substitute for a sustainable population policy. On a separate issue, I feel I must defend the honour of demographers and economists. Rarely has a task given me less pleasure because in the main, both vocations warrant the criticism levelled at the start of Sheila's post. Having said that, there have been some notable exceptions in both categories that deserve a favourable mention. In the demography category, I like the work of Katherine Betts and Bob Birrell. Both have spoken out against rampant growth and suffered verbal lashings from all the usual suspects for their trouble. As for economists, the late Ted Wheelright from Sydney Uni produced some legendary work and Evan Jones ran the 'Alert and Alarmed' blogspot which carried a number of articles critical of growth and the cargo cult mentality. Ted's treatment by the University hierarchy is infamous. Evan Jones is regularly defamed as a 'fringe' character by mainstream economites. www.usyd.edu.au/news/84.html?newsstoryid=1868 alertandalarmed.blogspot.com/2006/10/what-price-growth.html These are some of the few good apples in generally rotten barrels. More power to them. Cheers

I think that the real issue is control and influence within one's community. If vast numbers of new people come into a community, it doesn't matter if they are of similar ethnicity or appearance; they will still impact on logistics, hugely disrupting local networks which are the basis of government and democratic organisation. This is happening at the minute in neighourhoods all over the country, where waves of people are selling up inner suburban homes, to find cheaper dwellings in outlying neighbourhoods, as the cost of living rises. The recipient neighbourhoods are being destroyed by this population pressure, even though it comes from people speaking the same language, born and raised in the same country. The fact is that government, by following the big business agenda, is disempowering citizens by disorganising them spatially, interrupting their family, neighbourhood and employment networks. Overseas entrants are, of course, driving the property price and cost of living inflation, simply by ADDING to the population and thereby to demand on resources. The Australian-born and long-term citizens are responding to this induced inflation by moving out of the densely populated areas where the costs of land are usually greatest. As they move out, they raise the population density and inflation in the outer suburbs. The State uses the situation to impose draconian planning laws on all citizens. And, bingo, one day you wake up and there is not even the semblance of democracy and the government is not even pretending there is. This is what has happened overnight in Victoria, with the "New Residential Zones in Victoria" questionnaire, which has come up with a fait accompli and presented it to Melburnians in the guise of seeking their opinion. Under the pretext that population is growing uncontrollably, the Victorian Government seeks to take away all the control that people that people had over their local environments, streets, and neighbourhoods, and believed was their right. The government fails to take responsibility for the population growth, although it was clearly induced by design and policy. I really wonder how much worse the situation can get.

Actually, although this may seem unfashionable and may make me unpopular with many population stability advocates, not to mention the usual 'open borders' crowd, I think, contrary to what Suzy wrote, race as well as sheer numbers, should be raised in discussions about immigration. Certainly race comes into the question of Immigration into East Timor, West Papua and Tibet (and in Australia going back to 1788), where local people do not want to become minorities in their own land. If that is valid in those cases, why not for Australia in the 20th and 21st centuries? The implicit reason for European Australians not being accorded the same status as other victims of high immigration is that Australia is a colonialist settler society which had early dispossessed another culture, namely the Australian Aboriginals. It turns out that Aboriginals don't like high immigration any more than many European Australians do. So clearly, far from rectifying our own forefathers' poor, and often shameful treatment of Aboriginals, high immigration is only compounding the problem for them. I think 'racism' is, to a certain extent, a natural part of the human condition. It is natural for people to prefer to be amongst people who look similar to themselves and behave the same way. Does this make acceptable the actions of groups like the Ku Klux Klan in the US, or, worse still, Nazi genocide, the Armenian holocaust, ethnic cleansing in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, etc? Of course any decent compassionate person would emphatically disagree. However abhorrence of these genocidal excesses of extreme racists, should not prevent us from openly considering questions of race and racism. I personally would have preferred the racial composition of 1960's Australia to have been largely preserved, as I believe most Swedes and Norwegians would have preferred their countries to have remained predominantly and homogeneously Nordic. If Australians had been asked back then if they would have preferred to have become a minority in their own country they would have emphatically rejected it. However, this is the way things are turning out without the original inhabitants ever having been consulted. In the 1960's most Australians would have accepted that the complete exclusion of virtually all people from non-European backgrounds was unfair, but now, the whole situation has been turned around to a point where we are supposed to welcome the extinguishment of our European heritage by other cultures. --- Alex

from: ABC Web Site: HIA challenges RBA's economic advising ability The Housing Industry Association has questioned the ability of economic agencies to advise on how best to tackle the housing affordability problem. Association director Ron Silberberg has told a federal Parliamentary Committee that agencies like the Reserve Bank have failed to predict triggers for rising house prices in the past. He told the committee the contribution from economists has not been as robust as it should have been. "If the so-called experts in our agencies can't explain adequately what has transpired, what possibility have we got that they identify appropriate solutions," he said. The HIA also says uncontrolled levels of immigration have fuelled Australia's private rental squeeze. Mr Silberberg told the Committee the pace of immigration to Australia has been massive over the past three years. He says the Federal Government has control of the immigration lever, which impacts on housing availability. "We estimate that the net permanent and long-term migration flow is now running at about 250,000 a year," he said. "I ask the question, 'do we need an explanation as to why there is pressure on private rental housing?'."

Oh, please! Rupert Murdoch's News Inc is the OWNER of the Queensland Courrier Mail which covered the elections in such a partial fashion in a manner to PROMOTE those who facilitate property development, including an employee of the Australian Property Council. (See article "Why the Brisbane Mayoral elections should not have been 'boring'") Someone should do a study about whether courses for journalists have greatly dropped their matriculation requirements in the past 20 years. Would this explain the total naivety of editors and journalists on this subject? Certainly, where journalists were once taken from a population of all kinds of writers and specialists, they are now taken from journalism schools in Universities which must please industry in order to attract funds. Oh, and also, many journalists are really writers for the industries, and paid for by the industries.

Further to my 1st comment actually about the best Green Parties, if you look at the other two best there is again not a mention of the word 'population'. All are concerned with human rights, gender politics etc. as shown below from the Missouri website: The Ten Key Values: Respect for Diversity Social Justice Grassroots Democracy Feminism Community-Based Economics Decentralization Ecological Wisdom Nonviolence Personal and Global Responsibility Future Focus

James, I appreciate your point. Many "sins" were real. The internment of Japanese Canadians in 1941 was real. The failure to compensate them was real.The abduction of First Nations children from their communities and placement in residential schools of abuse was real. The denial of the right to vote from Chinese Canadians until 1948 was real. Theft of Aboriginal land without honouring treaty obligations was real. The list is not exhaustive. "Alleged" was a poor choice of words, much like saying that the killings at Aushwitz were "alleged". So why did I say it? Because much of what is said about European-Canadian culpability is wrong. Firstly, there was no Wounded Knee or massacre at Sand Creek. The Mounties were not the US Calvalry and we had no George Custer. Instead we had the Riel Rebellion. True a lot of natives died of disease, 80,000 in British Columbia I believe of small pox. But Europeans here did not deliberately infect blankets and pass them out. Native immune systems just couldn't handle a fatal contact. The greatest cross we have had to bear are the Oriental Exclusion Act and the Komagata Maru incident of the early 20th century. The spin that has been put on these developments is that Asians were deliberately excluded from our country for racist reasons. These events are re-visited by the media and the educational system over and over again so as to silence all opposition to future immigration from the region. Much in the way that our Prime Minister's turning back of Jewish refugees from Hitler is waved in our face as a reason never to say no to an unlimited number of refugees. The reason for the Oriental Exclusion Act and the expulsion of the passengers of the Komagata Maru was to protect the wages and working conditions of BCs labour force. Period. These are the "sins" I had in mind when I referred to "alleged" sins. Tim

I attended the meeting last Tuesday where the vote was passed to allow the expansion of the quarry. I was appalled at the lack of regard given to the wishes of the community. Yes the environment is again to be damaged, yes wildlife will again be affected but with the increase in pollution and road traffic people's health will be adversely affected and the lives of our childen endangered. The community must be listened to when these decisions are made to stop these negative consequences on our community. Wendy Boglary Ormiston Resident

According to the Real Estate Institute of Australia (REIA), the answer to Australia's housing affordability crisis is to release more land for development and to water down 'draconian' planning laws that add to the cost of building a new house. Of course they'd say this. If you work on the assumption that demand will (and should) grow ad infinitum, you must meet the demand. And if rapidly growing demand keeps prices high, then the best way to deal with that is not to dampen demand (heaven forbid!), but to build shoddier houses and suburbs at cheaper cost. A look at Canberra's suburban development is enlightening. The older (inner) suburbs were subject to strict planning requirements. Such suburbs are characterised by large blocks, tree lined streets and plenty of open space. Despite some recent changes allowing dual occupancy - they remain lovely places to live. As you move north or south, you can see the effects of the of eroding planning requirements over time. The blocks get smaller, the proportion of public space is reduced, the proportion of medium density housing increases. In Banks and parts of Belconnen, the streets are narrow, the blocks are tiny and in general you feel like you could be in any of the mushroom suburbs in Sydney's north-west. There's no concession to local conditions in the architecture. And for all that, the houses are STILL less affordable than they were in the 60's when 'draconian' planning restrictions were firmly in place. Frankly, the REI's ideas amaze me. I can't imagine how proposals so blatantly self-serving and at odds with the interests of the community can be seriously considerded. So what could a responsible Government do to address the problem of housing affordability? Here's 4 ideas to begin with.. 1. Reduce population growth. Preaching to the converted on this site, so i don't think this needs any elaboration. 2. Scrap negative gearing for investment properties. Negative gearing on investment housing encourages people to purchase multiple dwellings. The extra demand that's generated by people wanting an investment property artificially inflates prices, putting the price of simpler properties ('starter' houses) out of the reach of first home buyers. The REI perpetuates the myth that if you stop negative gearing on investment properties, the sky will fall. They claim that Keating's half-hearted rollback in 1985 resulted in a massive jump in rents and subsequent disaster for all concerned. Problem is, that story's just bunkum - as explained by Ross Gittins.. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/24/1061663676588.html Confronted with this, does the REI back down and admit that it got it all wrong? Hell no. It digs itself in deeper. On 23 July 2007, the REI produced possibly the most confused and misleading media release of the year, entitled "Negative Gearing Improves Housing Affordability". http://www.reiaustralia.com.au/media/releases.asp This amazing document concludes that if people are encouraged to invest in housing (even established homes) this will lead to lower rents and thus, more affordable housing. I'd have thought that if people have to pay more to buy investment properties - because of increased demand stimulated by negative gearing - then they'd be needing higher returns and thus charging higher rents. Silly me. The release doesn't touch on the affordability of owner occupied housing at all - presumably the challenge of showing how increased demand will lead to lower prices was too much - even for the experienced spin doctors at the REI. The whole issue of negative gearing and the REI's sorry role in it's defence is worthy of separate treatment, but to move on.. 3. Take the revenue generated by scrapping negative gearing (NG) on investment places, and return it to the people in the form of a tax break on owner occupied housing - only. Such a move could be restricted to houses in areas facing decline or to properties that met specific environmental requirements. In conjunction with scrapping NG for investment places, this'd make the changes to NG revenue neutral and avoid the accusation of a revenue grab by Government. 4. Support schemes that give people the option of trading their part-time labour for a deposit. Such schemes are sometimes referred to as 'sweat-equity' and have been pioneered by Tumbarumba Council in southern NSW. They allow cash poor people with some available time to get out of the rent trap using their own labour. Tumbarumba Council should be congratulated on implementing this progressive program and other local, state and federal government bodies should take a good look at it. http://www.tumbashire.nsw.gov.au/news/pages/1317.html Of these ideas, all but #3 would give the REI apoplexy. But surely - just for once - the national interest should be considered. The last 30 years have shown that pandering to corporate lobby groups does not lead to better or more affordable housing. It's time for a fresh approach. Cheers .

This is a real-world story, showing how paranoid Wall Street has got about oil, and desperate for cheap oil. For obvious reasons, no names are mentioned. OIL PRICES - ARAB GULF STATES TO THE RESCUE ? Andrew McKillop Late November saw Wall Street shellshocked from stock indices that reeled with the US dollar, from serial bad news on the credit crunch, with home loan defaults shifting now to car loan defaults, and after that who knows ? Perhaps defaults on credit card loans for school books, clothes or parrot cages ? Behind or to the side of this as permanent bad news for seamless, Teflon growth of equity markets so recently at all-time highs, was or is the specter of ultra high oil prices near 100 US dollars a barrel. For starters oil isnt in the same league as improbable, but real paper losses from credit linked and derived financial instruments, swaps, bonds and suchlike, that suddenly lost their glamor and market appeal in summer 2007. In the flight to quality, to low-yielding but surer financial paper closely linked to governments, like US 10-year treasury bills, the Frankenstein creations of financial whizzkids or engineers have left vast stacks of paper to write down in value, often by 90% on face value, sometimes a simple and final 100%. In Europe for example, maybe 2000 billion USD, around 1400 billion Euro or 1000 billion GB pounds of face value paper could be at risk of massive write-downs. Basically, nobody will buy it. In the US, in the home loans sector, any guess will do for the size of junk-status mortgage and credit related paper swilling round the finance circuits, but it could be 3000 or 5000 billion USD in nominal or 'face value' terms. Compared to that, at present sky-high, dangerous and inflation-stoking oil price levels a guesstimate for OPEC's total revenues in the next 12 months might be 650 billion USD. Yet this gets written into the disaster scenario different ways and often. Mostly it hinges on the magic word 'confidence'. Teflon consumers can pull out of their swoon, start paying back their mortgages, buy new cars, take a flight to Honolulu or Hong Kong and joyfully buy a dozen new parrot cages if they get their gasoline, heating oil and plastics or pharmaceuticals just a bit cheaper - not a tiresome and constant bit more expensive. ARAB OIL TO THE RESCUE Over lunch in a chic New York sushi bar very late in November with a former chief oil strategist at a rather well-known investment bank we heard how critical and vital it is to act now and do something. His former employers had themselves been doing some bloodcurdling write-downs of junk paper, so he knew exactly what is needed. Stop the spiral sending oil prices to crazy heights, bring back confidence, save the US dollar and give some collateral life to those drooping stocks and equities indices. Of course our oil strategist doesnt believe in Peak Oil but along Wall Street, and in other places, that is understandable. In a secular age belief in something clear and easy to gurgle at the microphone is necessary. Unlimited oil reserves exist in the Arab lands. Everybody knows this ! Schoolbooks of the right vintage, and prime-time TV of the right and far-right editorial bent say that, so it must be true. We heard from the expert how one and all of his high level contacts inside OAPEC and the GCC-Gulf Cooperation Council were sweating bullets, even in late November around the propane-fired campfire outside Dubai city limits, with a tasty halal lamb chop on the skewer. They had already acted to save Citigroup with a generous injection of 7.5 billion USD in cash, although Citigroup might have another 25 or 30 billion in mortgage derivatives and other junk finance paper to write down and out, but they and the cream of Wall Street knew high priced oil was really to blame. It was now time to act, hike output, and send oil prices back to ground zero - say 55 or 60 dollars a barrel. The uncharitable might say that isnt really cheap, and the outright cruel might say its a campfire dream along the 12-lane desert highway. Cooked up in an alcohol-free bonhomie session with a gas powered Honda generator to run the laptops, lights and music this dream has one fatal flaw - its a dream. At dawn, everybody will be gone to take their next flight in a fuel efficient Airbus or low carbon Boeing, and can forget everything on arrival. Our expert told us to believe the anxiety of sunni sheikhs who own and operate OAPEC and the GCC. They had downloaded clever spreadsheets and amusing blogs convincing them extreme high oil prices will crater world oil demand after destroying US economic growth. After that, they learned, world oil would tilt back to permanent oversupply and permanent low prices, just like the grim days of 1986-1999 when nobody thought of, or could pay for 75-storey office blocks at the desert's edge. Asking the difficult question "Who is going to bail out Citigroup and its lookalikes with 7.5 Bn dollar cash injections, if oil prices slide to nothing ?" only got the reply that this is a structured and targeted confidence building operation, needing 55 or 60-dollar oil for success. After January it could go back to 65-dollars, perhaps; what is needed is instant confidence, right now. The sushi bar session was paid by an interested listener usually trading tech stocks, but as he said you never know where a good tip will come from. As our expert readies to leave us we learned he was flying that very night to a Gulf sheikhdom, and a predictable whirlwind series of inevitably hi-level strategy meetings. Enough new barrels of sheikhly oil would be rolled out to knock prices back to the magic comfort level, say $60-a-barrel, or even less than that, inch'allah. His Arab friends are sure and certain they can do it, they say so, but he told us they need him to mastermind the operation. Otherwise, he forecasts instant doom and his Arab pals agree: "the S&P 500 could slump to 1250 and the US dollar to 60 Euro cents". Gosh and golly. How did things get so terribly bad ? To be sure this will be relayed by the usual finance media culprits. Expect plenty of downside and bearish oil news being injected to Bloomberg TV, CNBC business news, Fox business news, Wall Street Journal, Economist and Financial Times. The newsy-viewsy easy reading, watching and listening will be great for all believers in a cheap oil future. Who cares about reality ? The interested listener footing the bill had the right to one last question, on how rational this strategy can be with world oil supplies so tight. So many things could thwart this noble project if the extra barrels are not physically rolled out. It could turn even colder and stay that way in the US northeast, thought to be the only place on the planet that uses heating oil. Another creaky, under-maintained pipeline or refinery could blow up. The US recession might not be quite as scary as imagined, the US Treasury will keep on printing money and Bernanke will likely go on cutting interest rates. Iran will go on being difficult, to say the least, about its nuclear plans, Iraq can go on being a mess, Pakistan can get to be a mess, with real live nuclear weapons, Chavez can be worse than ever. The litany of dangerous things for the strategy of cutting oil prices back to 60-dollars almost overnight might even include earthquakes. WTI oil at $95 a barrel could seem rather cheap in January 2008. Our well-traveled lad dismissed all that with a wave of the wrist. He was flying out of New York for nice meetings, floating on a raft of petrodollars. Those pastoral herder friends of his would try so hard to do their bit. The Kuwaitis have already, temporarily of course, reversed thrust and now claim their oil production isnt shrinking but increasing, with a production hike of "up to 0.25 Mbd" in the 3 months since August. When oil prices needed a boost they could tell us their reserves were shrinking. When its too high priced for Citigroup and the lookalike crowd of harassed investment banks, they say they are pumping more. Saudi grandeur should allow them to claim 0.75 Mbd more. They would lose face at anything less, but because times are tough they might limit their claims to a nice round 0.5 Mbd. The Emiratis and maybe Omanis will do their bit, also. Pretty soon we have a wall of new oil rolled out, and prices collapse. All this will be done "within days or weeks", he said with a flourish as he left. The oil strategist's colleague who sat and listened to all this with a wry smile later told us he trades a personal account. He has to face facts, not believe campfire stories. He tipped us with advice you can tell your grandmother to put her lifetime savings into, or at least the price of a few parrot cages. WTI nearby futures, or the next month's contract price, he thought could shrink to maybe $75/bbl on the downside, but then rebound well above $101.30/bbl in the next 60 days. Why he chose $101.30 was simple: this is what Wall Street Journal calculates as the ultimate oil price in 1980, in 2007 dollars. January or February calls at $101.30/bbl will be really cheap in the next 15 days, he said, but the 75 puts wont be cheap, so go sparingly on those. Set a 65% upside/35% downside straddle or butterfly spread using this advice. Bet both ways but mostly up. If you dont like that, he added with a wink, try sugar.

Has anyone actually been out to the Parklands lately? I and my partner went there last weekend and I was horrified to see that the lagoons are drying out. The southern lagoon is now a baked dry cracked mud flat and the second lagoon is merely inches deep, evidenced by the fact that swimming birds - water hens, ducks etc - are leaving silt streaks in their wake as they try to swim and forage. It is obvious that the new housing development extension on the corner of Meadowlands and Belmont Roads has had a major impact on the flow of the tidal inlet into the lagoons. It is quite erroneous and deadly for human beings to think they can sustain this kind of development. Are the developers blind and stupid? or do they simply not give a damn about anything except making dollars at the expense of our Brisbane ecology? How on earth can CAN DO CAMPBELL imagine he will survive this kind of madness? Do the majority of human beings living in Brisbane, or indeed Queensland, really believe they can survive the ever increasing rate of destruction of protective coastal flora and fauna in the longer term. People are closing their eyes and minds to any analysis of the impact unfettered urban development will have on their long term well being. Why are we turning Brisbane into another ruined paradise, like Britain and America?

So Kevin Rudd's uncle is blaming him for not stopping the Traveston Dam on the Mary River? (The Australian, 22/11/07) Firstly, that's a state issue and the only way Mr Rudd could stop it is if he were the current Federal Environment Minister using his powers under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. At this point, the only Party that could stop the Traveston Dam is the Liberal/National Coalition, as they are the ones in power. Unfortunately, it is Malcolm Turnbull, Minister for Environment and Water, who is now in charge of protecting the environment. It is not likely that he will do that given the desperation for water. More importantly, it's the Howard/Costello Coalition government who caused the need for the dam, both by ignoring the warnings about climate change for the past 11 years and by increasing the number of people in Australia with their baby bonuses and high immigration program (which they have doubled since the Hawke/Keating years). If we want a sustainable society in Australia we must put pressure on our leaders to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, provide subsidies for renewable energy, build a new economy based on genuine sustainability and stabilise population at a level our continent, with one of the lowest carrying capacities in the world, can support. Hopefully if Rudd gets in he will be able to do something about the Traveston Dam and all the other devastation caused by the pro-growth-at-any-cost policies of the Howard government. Regards, binky

Great article! I used to wish that the major newspapers would devote more time to comments from the public, but the letters to the editor word-quotas just kept getting smaller. So it's great to read some comments about the commentators! I read Latham's Diaries and enjoyed some of his remarks about Labor hypocrisy and ego-mania. I couldn't find any sign however that Latham had any more ideas than the ALP or the Libs. It was disappointing to see how he bought, lock stock and barrel, growth economics mumbo-jumbo. Now it seems he has completely lost touch with reality on industrial relations. But the man never had any idea of the depth of our material and energy problems. This is the case with just about all the Labor politicians; it's as if they have never been out of the city and have always worked in offices. And the Libs may travel more, but they don't care about anyone. It is shocking that this man who seems to think of himself as some kind of working class hero would now assert that the Libs are not going to do anything worse. I am personally sure that they are. But is Labor going to do any better? Can't leave Howard in though; I agree with that. These are scary times.

James, Oh that we in Canada had a preferential voting system! ... (Continued in tim's blog post Voting Systems)

Yeah, I hear you. Cutting my nose off to spite my face. But how else do you teach an incumbent party of that longevity a lesson? You don't do it by joining it and working within. I tried that. For 39 years. The NDP first gained office in British Columbia in 1972 and they performed like no left-wing government in the Western world. They were not social democrats. They were socialists. And they governed with the expectation that they were going to be turfed from office after one term. So they jammed an incredible number of bills though the legislature. They nationalized resource industries. They established government automobile insurance. Free drugs for seniors. And they froze all farmland from development. After their defeat, subsequent leaderships determined to follow a more conciliatory course. Three more NDP governments followed in the next 27 years. My experience was that when in office, the parliamentary caucus developed a bunker mentality. Criticism from within the party was treated the same way as criticism from outside the party. The government agenda was shrouded with secrecy. MPs followed caucus discipline, not internal party bodies democratically elected by members. A personality cult would emerge whereby the leader was not to be questioned. When they were government of course, they would not listen to our advice. Party policy, indeed long-standing party policy was brushed aside. The God was Growth, and the measure of success was the same standard as the right applied. At this point, re-electing the NDP came to mean electing its right-wing clone. Seeing the right elected in its stead came to be a matter of indifference to many activists. Absention and non-participation became our only weapon. In BC now I am faced with a choice. The ruling rightwing Liberal Government of reckless growth and income disparity, or a milktoast social democratic opposition NDP which embraces something called "managed growth" and promises increased social spending. Even in opposition, the NDP will not listen to me. My MP ignores me and I am banned from distributing literature at meetings even though I was a member of long-standing. Can you imagine how impossible the NDP would be in government? I fought to change this party when I was a 19 year old member of its socialist ginger group. After 30 years of trying I give up on social democracy. Working within the movement accomplishes nothing. Voting for them only rewards their duplicity, hypocrisy, dishonesty, intellectual bankruptcy and corruption. Where the Christ is Che Guevara when I need him? Is there somebody out there in Oz reading this who went through similar tribulations with the ALP? Tim Murray

GREAT NEWS! After 16 years in office the Saskatchewan NDP went down to defeat in the November 7/07 elections, losing 11 seats and gaining just 37% of the vote to the winning centre-right Saskatchewan Party. The NDP had the opportunity to strike out a new and distinct vision for North American society---that of a steady-state economy. It was easier to do this in a province that has been experiencing a net loss in population than one that one was experiencing robust population growth. Instead, the NDP jumped on the growth bandwagon, as it has in Manitoba and British Columbia Growth is good, they said, as long as it is shared. Well, I suppose the electorate decided that they might as well go with the growth experts, the party of developers and big business, the Saskatchewan Party, rather than a pale imitation. The two party system exists so that alternatives can be proposed and are available to be voted on. By playing "Me Too" the NDP in Canada has denied the people any real choice. In fact Social Democrats everywhere seem to be about privatization, cutting services and promoting growth. Even nuclear power is no longer taboo. Is it any wonder that their traditional constituency abandons them? Soon British voters will send David Cameron and his Conservatives into office after a decade of Blairism, of unmet Kyoto targets, rampant crime, and out of control immigration. To say that it is about time that a Tory was back in is an appalling comment on how social democracy has gone wrong.

G'day James, In terms of support for multiculturalism, I don't think there's much difference between any of the left's sects. I was briefly associated with the Socialist Party of Australia (the 71-96 version) during the 80's. While the SPA had a healthy skepticism about the Trot prediliction for 'hip' causes, they also gave very little thought to whether multiculturalism served Australian workers or not. I don't recall any discussion about a population policy for Australia either. On the positive side, (some) individuals on the left been critical of globalist, open-border thinking - if not openly then through unions or other groups they've been involved with. For example, the then CPA was active in the leadership of the AMWU when it produced the 'Australia Ripped Off' (1982?) series of publications. Ted Wheelwright has contributed to websites etc that question mass immigration and multiculturalism. I can't fathom the left's support for these things. My half thought-out theory is that rightist groups - somtimes with a racial agenda - opposed immigration during the 60's and 70's. The left found racism an excellent cudgel to bash the right with. In their fervour, left groups championed just about anything that could be prtrayed as anti-racism in action. Often without thinking about the implications, it would seem. The pity is that a few on the left (Wheelwright, John Carroll etc) saw that racism could be rejected without embracing policies detrimental to our social or environmental wellbeing, but that their point of view was never widely accepted. Cheers .

The greatest irony of multiculturalism is the Australian left's unwavering support for it. If worker solidarity is required to achieve optimum wage and condition outcomes, how can policies that promote a diversity of national cultures (tribalism in practice) rather than national unity be beneficial? Surely such policies work directly against worker solidarity? As a mischeivous teenager, I got hours of pleasure goading the Trots outside Parramatta Town Hall to try to explain this to me. (Well yes, I was easily amused..) Their stock responses were "racism is the bosses tool for dividing workers" and "it's not all about wages and conditions; diversity should be valued for its own sake". To which I'd respond that (1) racism didn't come into it. Australians of all racial backgrounds could and should be encouraged to share a national culture which emphasised egalatarianism and mateship, which would (incidentally) make for a much more united bunch of workers. And (2) that Australia was already plenty diverse without promoting dangerous national/cultural divisions into the mix. As examples, the culture of alternative lifestylers at Nimbin is different to that of farmers at Holbrook is different to that at Glebe Point Road.... but the single unifying thing all these diverse people have in common is that they're all Australian. Of course, your Parramatta Town Hall Trot of the mid 80's was more inclined to action than debate and these encounters ended badly more often than not. But to this day, I'm amazed by the left's unbridled support for multiculturalism - which must really be regarded as the biggest swindle ever perpetrated by (or on?) the Australian left. Top blog by the way.. keep it up. Cheers .

Help is needed urgently to publicise the sale of this building and to convince the new Premier to withdraw this historic building from the sale and development. This was the building where thousands of the South Sea Islanders were rounded up and held before deportation from Queensland in the early 1900s under the White Australia legislation. Are we that ashamed of our past that we have to sell it off and hope that all memory of it will go away?

I am astounded to read that Queensland Deputy Premier Anna Bligh recently put the construction industry ahead of water, soil, freedom and survival. This expansion HAS to be stopped before it destroys us, yet this fool of a woman (do they only promote really stupid non-analytical women to positions of power) is prepared to accelerate our collective doom. "The only way we could really (stop population growth) is to put a fence up at the (Queensland) border, or to cancel or freeze all new home building approvals," she said. "That would have a very serious impact on the construction industry that a lot people rely on for jobs." said planning-challenged QL Dep Premier Bligh.

Hmm. And our national and personal debts have grown, and our consumption has grown, and the rate at which we deplete oil has grown, and emissions have grown and the total numbers of the hungry have grown, and land prices have grown and homelessness has grown and ... and... Gee, never thought of it like that before

People have been taught that everything they do has to expand and make profit beyond what they need merely to survive. Thus small farms fall away to massive agribusinesses and skills which once were only expected to barely supplement living off the land are now expected to furnish the huge incomes required to purchase increasingly unreasonably expensive houses, transport, educations. And so on. It isn't surprising that people have succumbed to the temptation of importing cheap labor and of excusing their actions with these lies about how it benefits that cheap labor and how locals are unwilling to work for peanuts. The aspirational and competitive society, especially in a very big population, competes against the very people who it should show solidarity towards for mutual benefit. This competitive, cheating, greedy society is like a tissue where the best fed, most active cells are the cancer cells.

I just returned from Brisbane (4 days on Fraser Island – nice!) and was amazed to see a giant Queensland population counter over the freeway from the Airport, sponsored by NRMA. Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised, but it did seem very strange given the increasing traffic chaos in the city and dire water situation.

There are regular TV shows that glorify large families, often created by a botched fertility procedure. No one seems to think about the impact of a large family. If we all had five kids, do the math! This seems to go along with a great lie that is embedded in our minds -- that growth is good. This is a big total lie, but I hear our politicians raving about growth all the time. I just read today where a local politician said many cities must envy Atlanta's vibrant growth (Georgia, USA). Well, I'll tell you, what is so wonderful about fouled air, constant traffic jams, water shortages, totally raped and paved over land, crowds of people everywhere, and a loss in quality of life. Who would envy that? Until our leaders get over their love affair with eternal growth, then we will continue on our current, suicidal path. We are in a drought here in north Georgia (USA), which has just been raised to Level IV. That means we have to take shorter showers while the developers continue to rape and plunder the countryside with no accountability. THE WORLD IS INSANE!

The Queensland government should be stripped of its powers for allowing the property developers to destroy the beauty of Queensland and to overwhelm natural resources like water. How much are Queenslanders expected to put up with? What gives any elected person the right to dispossess their electors and our children so that a few horrible people might dominate shameful empires of bricks and sand? We only have one Queensland; we only have one planet and it is being stripped and murdered. What is wrong with the Australian public? Why do they allow this to happen? Our leaders should go on trial, not to the election! PFascogale

I just want to know what this damned pulp mill will do to our animals and enviroment I am a junior zoologist and I don't belive in hurting mother nature or the animals. I care for this planet and every body should make sure they do what they can to save the enviroment and animals or I can tell you you will end up in hell. signed chickkindachick

Whereas it is true that a number of additional measures should be taken to ensure a Total Fertility Rate less than 2.0 and, preferably, closer to 1.0 (temporarily), it is also true, as I have written at dematerialism.net/CwC.html#_Toc149364223, that, in a society in which everyone's share of the sustainable community dividend were equal regardless of every other consideration (pure communism), intentional excessive procreation would not occur to provide, for the parents, cheap labor and support in old age. As I have discussed in the above URL, in dematerialism.net/Chapter%209.html, and elsewhere, excessive procreation would be eliminated in, for example, China if the Communist Party would embrace pure communism as defined above. Every objection to such a program has been answered.

There was an interview with Beazley on SBS last night (20/9/07) on the occasion of his retirement from Fed Politics and Beazley was asked his response to a comment from the Australian and he said something like, "I know the Australian would like to run the country, but it doesn't yet". He added that it never would because Australians would never let it or words to that effect. Well, I don't know. I think that the Australian and the Financial Review and the Age and the Courrier Mail and the TV stations do run the country because they are practically the only unifying source of information about policy and events. They market and authorise the 'facts' (as they wish us to see them). They employ fly-by-night journos, much of the time and syndicate US sourced 'opinion'. I also think that the work ethic which is used to drive workers harder and harder in this country is no accident; peoples' noses are so hard to the grindstone they only have time to consume or flake in front of the tv news, or grab a few paras from whichever Murdoch or Fairfax print mouthpiece is marketed at their profile. Another symptom of this passive vessel work-slave population is the passive entertainment syndrome. I caught some news this morning where an Arts Minister (the Federal Minister, I think) is talking about spending a whole lot of money to import Venezuelan musical performers. What about patronising Australian performers - people who do something of their own. It is all very well and good importing an act we can all watch, but we are already too passive. And children are getting horribly fat. And the nation is heading for higher and higher diabetes. And the education system simply markets propaganda... "Work" and "Consume" and "Sit down and shut up". And even that is promoted as an opportunity for fat surgeons. If you have a BMI of around 30+ the government subsidises gastric banding. But some will say that I diverge. P Fascogale

Excuse me MR BOO HOO, WELL I would love your house to be destroyed and put to the ground. There are animals thresterned with extinction in the Minnippi Park Lands. Who cares if people want homes. It's called buying your own property and building a house. Thank you very much!

If the Liberals wanted to advertise Work "Choices", they should have done so, AT THEIR OWN EXPENSE, before the last election. If they had sought and won a mandate to introduce Work "Choices", the electorate would not now be so bitter about having these extreme unfair laws.

seriously get OVER it. its not like there wont be anymore area for the animals to live. did you ever think about the people who dont have proper homes and might want to live there so just give them a go. this is just a big sook. find something better to do with your time!