Dick Smith

Registration with the Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC) has been confirmed for the Sustainable Australia Party.

Australian Dick Smith, techie, environmentalist who founded National Geographic, and millionaire, has recently attempted to educate Australians about the wealthy population growth lobby in their country, which benefits from Australia's rapid immigration-fueled population growth whilst the rest of us pay the cost. To do this, he has run his own expensive campaing, including taking out expensive ads in newspapers. Among other things, Smith has decribed Australia's public media, the ABC, as biased in its failure to fairly report the costs of population growth. We on candobetter.net cannot help but be impressed at his community spirit. Are Dick Smith’s ads having an effect on population reporting further afield? Maybe. Here's an example of what we hope may be a new trend in truthful reporting on the matter by the ABC.

Dick Smith has started a campaign supporting the ABC TV news and current affairs as his favourite network, but wants them to show more balance when it comes to reporting population issues.

When I lodged my nomination as a candidate for the SA House of Assembly seat of Fisher 2 years ago, the very first communication I received was a letter from the ABC telling me I would not get any coverage for my campaign. This was despite the fact that I was the nominated candidate for a registered political party with over 300 members, and I was spending about $6000 of my savings on campaign expenses and nomination fees." [...] "the Earth adds approx. 225,000 mouths to feed EVERY DAY. Australia adds approx. 1000 to its population each day. The implications of this are enormous, and yet it is very clear to me that the ABC soft pedals the matter. To be more specific, it is very common that, when an issue of national importance such as housing affordability comes up, there is very little mention of the influence population growth is having on the matter. The interviewers commonly host guests from the property industry to put their views, but people from such bodies as Sustainable Population Australia never seem to be asked to comment."

Dick Smith commissioned a Galaxy poll to assess both the impact of his $1 million TV ad campaign based on the Grim Reaper AIDS ad of the 1980s, and community attitudes towards Australia’s developed-world-leading immigration-fueled rapid population growth. The sample comprised 1,005 respondents, distributed throughout Australia including both capital city and non-capital city areas – the report is attached. The main findings of the poll were:

 The majority of Australians (83%) believe that population growth is of such significant consequence that every major political party should have a population plan.
 There is an overwhelming belief that politicians should be doing something about population growth (82%).
 Population growth is an issue of concern for the majority of supporters of both the Coalition (62%) and the Labor Party (62%).
 Among those that have seen the TV ad 91% are convinced that every major political party should have a population plan.

Tonight (11 September 2017) the ABC’s Media Watch program contained a section in which presenter (Paul Barry) attacked Dick Smith’s views on population and specifically Dick Smith’s complaints about the ABC’s refusal to cover the issue of Australia’s rampant population growth. Yet for much of the time he did not defend the ABC. He did not answer points Dick Smith makes at https://www.dicksmithfairgo.com.au/abc-tv-news-current-affairs-bias-growth/or that William Lines and I have made at https://www.dicksmithfairgo.com.au/abc-bias-chapter-overloading-australia/ about ABC bias. Instead, Paul Barry seemed more interested in attacking Dick Smith. [Mark O'Connor is a well known Australian poet and co-author with Bill Lines of Overloading Australia.]

Subsequent to Dick Smith's complaints to the ABC about bias towards the growth lobby on the subject of population, on 11 September 2017, Paul Barry, of ABC Media Watch, launched what many thought was a personal attack on Smith, in lieu of dealing fairly with the vital issues at hand. Dr John Coulter (former Senator and leader of the Democrats) wrote the following complaint to Media Watch, where he protests at the treatment of Dick Smith by Media Watch and documents a number of instances of pro-population-growth bias in the ABC. You can also read some a few comments published by Media Watch on this issue here: http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s4732374.htm.

Van Badham, the author of an insulting Guardian piece against Dick Smith, (Thursday 7 September 2017) parades the usual cliches about 'educating women' to deal with population growth, despite the obvious fact that although women in Australia still have relatively high rates of literacy, our population just keeps growing faster and faster. Not because Australian women are having huge families, but because mass immigration from overseas contributes 60% of Australia's population growth. How is education going to fix that, Ms Van Badham? [16 September 2017: See new footnote #5.]

Kindly and patriotic Australian businessman, Dick Smith, has been very poorly treated by the ABC on episode 158 of its The Drum program. This is a very serious problem because, in mistreating Dick Smith, the ABC misinforms Australians on a subject of vital and democratic importance. The ABC seems now undifferentiated from the commercial TV channels with regard to reporting on population. Apparently the ABC has actually banned Dick Smith from the program. The letter inside, from Dick Smith to Ms Julia Baird, the Presenter of The Drum, asks for right of reply. We have embedded Dick Smith's video ad at the beginning of the text so you can judge for yourself whether Ms Baird has a leg to stand on. To us it is obvious that what has caused the media to go after Dick Smith is the fact that he has linked growthist population policy to Australia's reigning politicians and they are going to try to destroy him.

Article by Leith van Onselen. Dick Smith is a national treasure. Yesterday he used his own money to fund an ad in Australia’s major newspapers challenging Lucy Turnbull – the chief commissioner of the Greater Sydney Commission (GSC) – on mass immigration, and asking her what her eventual plans are for the population of Sydney – querying whether it could be 16 or even 100 million.

Dick Smith queries Lucy Turnbull’s Perpetual Population Growth Plan. In a half page advertisement featuring in major newspapers tomorrow morning, including the Daily Telegraph in Sydney,
The Sydney Morning Herald, the Financial Review and The Australian, Dick Smith is asking Lucy Turnbull, the chief planner for Sydney, just what her eventual plans are for the population of Sydney – querying whether it could be 16 or even 100 million.

Dick Smith says he has been refused advertising space about his new magazine, Forbidden Ideas, by the Murdoch Press in Adelaide. See inside for link to a film where he speaks his mind on what he perceives to be censorship. This is really a quite funny and very informative speech by an animated Dick Smith.

The problem of policing [irony acknowledged] 'free speech' in Australia is multiple and not just about free speech. It is about restraining the power of capitalism focused in one or two media corporations so that it cannot dominate public perception. Unusually public-spirited rich Australian, Dick Smith, has sent a long letter to Kim Williams, CEO of News Limited, defending the Australian Government's attempts to reform the press. In it he accuses the Murdoch press of cynicism in their opposition to these attempts.

With the revelation that the recently released carbon tax would exclude petrol, there was much protest and disappointment from climate change activists. But once again everyone missed the elephant in the room as far as meeting Australia’s emissions targets – the immigration rate.

An unusual thing about Dick Smith's book, "Population Crisis," is that it is written by a wealthy man who points out the failings of rich people. He says that most rich people give nothing away and describes them as very selfish. "Our economic system comes equipped with only one forward gear: foot to the floor growth. The poor want to be rich, and the rich want to be richer. It's an endless treadmill, and none of our leaders appears to know how to get off." Also inside article: Win $1m if you are under 30 by solving the population puzzle.

Jon Faine's Conversation Hour featured a debate between growthist Bernard Salt of KPMG and Australian businessman and author Dick Smith, who argues against growth. The only possibility of commenting was by SMS. There was no phone-in. My own experience of debating population growth on the conversation hour with ex-Premier Steve Bracks was that people later tried to make comments on the internet page associated with that debate, but the page was dysfunctional and quickly fell into total disrepair. I am therefore creating this page in the hope of getting some representation of public opinion on this matter.
You can access the debate here, immediately, and here on ABC, eventually.

ABC TV's Tony Jones' current affairs debate this evening provided firstly prominent Australian, Dick Smith, with a heart felt concern about the uncontrolled, unplanned immigration surge impacting Australia, then a rigorous but too brief a debate from nevertheless a fair cross section of what appeared to be informed observers. Useful issues were presented from many quarters.

One key observation is that Dick Smith, who dared to initiate the debate and invest much in the documentary, insightfully concluded that at least Australia is mature enough to start publicly debating the subject. What needs to be thought through next is a national plan for population into the medium term future. Well done Dick Smith for your leadership on this critical issue!

SPA, Dick Smith, Kelvin Thomson have combined to produce simultaneous population reform speak-out breakfasts in all mainland states of Australia tomorrow morning. We believe that the event was inspired by the Global Population Speak outs.

The article about SPPA in today's Australian (20 April 2010) is an indication of the profile public dissatisfaction is giving the population issue. The Australian is a self-admittedly big population advocate, and so it is interesting to see how the new party, Stable Population Party of Australia, has been reported and that it has been reported at all. I think that we have yet to see anything about it in the Victorian Press.
See also:Political diversity candobetter section

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