The immigration debate across the Tasman

February 1, 2010

 The political consensus on immigration in Australia seems to be reaching the stage it reached in New Zealand in 2002, when there was a noticeable swing away from expansive immigration reflected in a surge in support for New Zealand First. This resulted in a moderate reduction in total immigration numbers, a shift away from high levels of East Asian immigration, and a greater reliance on skilled immigration from Britain, South Africa and India.

 In Australia’s case though, the main reason for the increased opposition to expansive immigration policies isn’t assimilation issues but opposition from the environmental lobby, whose well articulated case for limiting immigration has been getting increasing exposure in the media.

This increasing environmental opposition to high immigration levels is also resonating with the general populace, with a recent opinion poll showing 66 percent of people in favour of reducing immigration. Centre-right blogger Andrew Bolt points out that Labour leader Kevin Rudd has already backed away from his previous support for increased immigration in response to increasing public opposition. This certainly makes political sense, as a significant part of Labour’s electoral image is based around on it being a more environmentally friendly party than the previous Liberal government.

 Surprisingly though, the opposition Liberal party has decided to make a stand in favour of continuing high immigration, and has opted for an Ellis Island-type policy of high immigration and aggressive assimilation. While this may well be highly appealing to the big business lobby, it’s likely to be strongly opposed by both middle class environmentalists and the vast majority of working and lower middle class Australians and could well lose the Liberals the next election.

Leave a Comment » | Australia, Environmental issues, Immigration | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman

Nationalists on climate change

December 16, 2009

 The British National Party appears to be getting a fair amount ot of political mileage out of its opposition to globalist responses to man-made climate change and the left is taking note

While climate change skeptics on the mainstream right have gained some credibility from the ‘climategate’ revelations, their anti-global warming argument is treated with suspicion because many believe they are politically opposed to climate change since it threatens their desire for unimpeded economic growth. This leaves other groups on the right that don’t believe in unimpeded economic growth to take the political lead in critising internationalist responses to climate change.

Unlike the man-made climate change skeptics on the mainstream right and their opponents on the liberal left, the nationalist right is not encumbered by having any particular ideological axe to grind in terms of the climate change debate. If man-made climate change is a serious problem, then the nationalist right can use it to advance its case for limited immigration and economic nationalisation. Conversely, if it turns out not to be a serious problem, then the nationalist right also stands to gain from exposing left-liberal plans to use climate change to expand global government.

Leave a Comment » | Environmental issues, Nationalism | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman

A nationalist approach to demographic imbalances

April 12, 2009

With a change of leadership in the White House, population control advocates are in the news again with calls for more population control programmes in the burgeoning third world.

Overpopulation seems to be one of those orphan issues which both liberals and religious conservatives prefer to ignore, but which stubbornly refuses to go away.

It may be easy to dismiss overpopulation as dire sensationalism if you live in lightly-populated Western Australia or Wyoming, but it’s harder to ignore if you’re working in the Italian coastguard having to collect dead African refugees floating about the Mediterranean.

One of the big reasons why overpopulation isn’t taken seriously is that most population control advocates are culturally naive environmentalists who see the overpopulation issue as a global problem requiring global solutions. And as the example of global warming demonstrates, once something is labeled a “global problem” it becomes a unsolvable abstraction that nobody’s willing to deal with.

Overpopulation may have been a global problem in the past, but it’s now largely a national that’s much worse in some countries than others.

For example, in Somalia and Niger, fertility rates are about 7 births per woman, while in Italy and Eastern Europe fertility rates are around 1.3 births per woman – well below the replacement rate of 2.1.

Population control advocates who go around telling everyone to have fewer children won’t win much support from conservatives who see no reason why western countries which are struggling to pay the welfare and medical costs of an aging population should also have to pay for the overpopulation problems of the developing world.

Nevertheless, the world’s burgeoning population has already had a big impact on the environment, and is causing massive social and economic disruption in both rich and poor countries alike.

How then to draw attention to this pressing issue without alienating potential support?

Well perhaps instead of talking of global overpopulation, population control advocates should define the problem as one of population imbalance, which would highlights the fact that some countries have too many children and some countries too few.

This would certainly be more palatable to conservatives and nationalists, but it would draw a lot of criticism from the globalist left.

If the overpopulation issue is defined as a problem of population imbalance between countries, then it would become clear that countries, rather than NGOs, should be taking more responsibility for dealing with it, and for the globalist organisations charged with distributing aid to the third world, such an idea is anathema.

Even most conservatives who oppose expanding welfare in first world countries, run for cover at the idea of telling third world countries that development aid should be tied to population control measures.

Eventually though, unconditional aid to the third world will become just too expensive for the West and what aid it does provide will have to be conditioned on preferential trade agreements or other conditions which are beneficial to the donor.

Already China is leading the way in this regard, with an infrastructure for resources policy that it’s pursuing in parts of African, The South Pacific and Latin America.

However, for the populations of third world countries that continue to grow at a rapid rate, the changing situation in the West will put them in a very precarious position. Instead of being able to pacify their growing populations with western aid money, developing countries with growing populations will suddenly be forced to live off their own rapidly shrinking resource bases.

Hence, from this perspective, the sooner the West starts making government aid to poor countries conditional on reduced population growth the better.

Private aid agencies are of course free to pursue their own approaches, but hard-pressed western taxpayers shouldn’t have put up with money being wasted on short-sighted band-aid policies that amount to fighting the fire by feeding the flames.

This should also apply to the Palestinians, whose unreasonably high birthrates only aggravate the already volatile situation in the West Bank and Gaza strip.

Palestinians may believe having as many children as possible is a good strategy for national survival, but I don’t see why the West should have to pay for it.

2 Comments | Demography, Environmental issues, Nationalism | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman

Lack of realism from the Greens

March 30, 2009

Recently I came across this post on NZ Green Party policy, which comes some way towards explaining why the party isn’t opposed to relatively high immigration levels.

Apparently the Ministry of Environment has estimated the human carrying capacity of New Zealand to be around 5.5 million, that’s the point after which the environment will be unable to sustainably accommodate increased population growth. Subsequently, the Green Party believes it’s OK to continue to expand the population (currently at just over 4 million) to just under the 5.5 million mark.

One problem with this reasoning is that it doesn’t take into account how the country is supposed to provide a high standard of living for this larger population.

At present New Zealand relies heavily on primary exports such as meat, timber, aluminium, wine and diary products, which require large amounts of land, water and electricity to produce.

However, if the population continues to expand, more arable land, water and electricity will be needed to cater for the larger population and less resources will be available for producing these income generating exports.

Also with traditionally strong industrial economies like Germany and Japan unable to compete in manufacturing with China, and with the service sector now struggling to compete with India, it may be wishful thinking to assume NZ can compensate for a shrinking resource base by developing alternative industries.

A safer, more sustainable approach would be to limit immigration and cash in on the rising demand for food and industrial materials generated by Asian industrialisation. The Green’s may believe in protecting local manufacturing in principle but they certainly aren’t realistic producerists.

Mind you, I probably shouldn’t overstate the influence of carrying capacity arguments in Green thinking in general.

They certainly don’t explain the pro-immigration policy of the Australian Green Party, which continues to ignore calls for immigration restrictionism even though Australia is already approaching the upper estimate for its carrying capacity (estimated at 17-23 million).

So it’s likely that old-fashioned socialism still plays a powerful part in Green ideology.

Leave a Comment » | Demography, Environmental issues, Green party | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman

Foolish anti-producerism from Labour as per usual

May 18, 2008

Rio Tinto Alcan, the primary owners of Southland’s Tiwai Point aluminium smelter claim the Government’s emission trading scheme could mean the end of the smelter and the loss of 3500 jobs.

The company’s regional president, Xiaoling Liu, warns that such a move could force the operation overseas, threatening the jobs of 900 smelter workers and 2600 indirectly employed workers.

Perhaps the most galling thing about the government’s enthusiasm for imposing heavy financial and administrative costs on manufacturing, in the name of reducing harmful emissions, is that manufacturing is the only sector of the economy or society to significantly reduce its carbon emissions over the last couple of decades. The Tiwai smelter has reduced emissions by over 40 percent since 1990, and operates one of the most efficient aluminium smelters in the world using a clean and renewable energy source.

Furthermore, if the smelter were to close, Rio Tinto would merely move production to a poorer country with much weaker pollution regulations, resulting in a probable increase in global emissions, and the loss of thousands of jobs and millions of dollars of vital export revenue (in the last 15 years for example, China has opened 15 new aluminium smelters).

It’s very easy for urban liberals to impose heavy financial regulations on industry as so few of them are employed in this sector, and it deflects attention away from the real sources of rising emissions – things like population growth and their own profligate lifestyles. Since it highly unlikely wealthy urbanites are going to stop driving around in gas guzzling “soft roaders,” or give up buying power boats, emissions trading is going to have little positive impact.

There’s certainly no point in sabotaging the economy on the alter of lower emissions, particularly since New Zealand’s contribution to global carbon emissions is so pathetically small that there’s little point doing anything drastic until China, Russia and the US start taking the lead. And since even the most environmentally conscious European countries seem unable to meet their Kyoto obligations, that could be a long time coming.

2 Comments | Environmental issues, Manufacturing, NZ economy | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman

A few thoughts on overpopulation and increasing food prices

April 30, 2008

With cries of food shortages now being heard in many third world countries, the West is likely to be expected to once again step in with food aid to ameliorate the crisis. But this could well result in making the situation worse.

While the recent surge in commodity prices may spell trouble for the millions of third world poor living in overcrowded cities, it’s actually good news for many third world farmers, who form the backbone of the economy in most developing countries. Subsequently, if the West responds by aiding third world countries with food aid, as it has done in the past, it may well drive down the price of locally produced grain and impoverish local farmers.

This is why population control is so essential in many developing countries. Most poor countries have a large non-production population which serves as both a break on development, and a major headache for cash-strapped third world governments trying to establish basic infrastructure.

In the past, nature had a rather brutal, but effective means of getting rid of surplus humans and making room for new development – famine. In a particularly dramatic example, a recent international genetics project claims modern humans almost became extinct 70,000 years ago (“When humans came closest to extinction,” The Press, Saturday, April 26).

According to the Genographic Project, the human population crashed from around 10,000 – 100,000 people to just 2000, following ice age related climate change which made Africa cooler and drier. However, the Project’s director, Spencer Wells, says this population crisis ultimately became a major stimulus for human development:

“A shift in culture began. People began making better hunting tools they needed to survive the drought. Art makes its appearance. There is abstract thought.”

Another such stimulus, occurred in Europe during the 14th Century, following massive depopulation caused by the Black Death. With a sudden and profound labour shortage, workers wages increased, feudalism began to breakdown and the development and uptake of labour saving technology, such as horse-drawn ploughs and water mills began in earnest. This labour-shortage-fueled technology stimulus went on to became a major factor in the technological supremacy of Europe and its colonies from 1500 through to the present day.

It’s seems that population control plays a vital role in human development, but how then can human numbers be controlled without massive human suffering?

Many liberals argue that people will naturally have fewer children as they become more educated and affluent. But that is putting the cart before the horse. People can’t become more affluent if they are too numerous to be able to command increasing wages for their labour, or authorities are unwilling or unable to educate them.

The most humane option, and one which is in the best interests of rich and poor countries, seems to be managed population control through such measures as family planning, contraceptives, and economic incentives. Hopefully the end of the Bush presidency this year will signal a resurgence of interest in funding for population control programmes.

1 Comment | Demography, Economic inequality, Environmental issues | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman

Counting the cost of population growth

April 24, 2008

With global food prices on the rise, we have yet another reminder to reconsider whether immigration-fueled population growth is really a good idea.

In an article on the News with Views website, American talk radio pundit Frosty Woolridge points out some of the numerous negative effects of large scale legal and illegal immigration into the United States:

“What does growth really bring to you and me? Yes, it creates a few ‘rich’ people. However, Bartlett said, “It brings more homeless, more unemployed, more people living in poverty, more traffic congestion, higher parking fees, more school crowding, more unhappy neighborhoods, more expensive government, more and higher taxes, more fiscal problems for the state, more air and water pollution, higher utility costs, diminished democracy, crowded highways, growing costs of infrastructure maintenance, higher food costs and more destruction of the environment.”

You will encounter a few more: overloaded campgrounds, beaches, ski resorts, more litter, higher gas costs, greater housing costs, water shortages and loss of choices and personal freedom. “

In my view this list constitutes a pretty powerful argument in favour of immigration restrictionism. Just about all of these trends can be applied to most other western countries including New Zealand.

About the only negative impact which doesn’t really apply to New Zealand is immigration-based unemployment. Fortunately, this country, unlike the US, doesn’t have a high level of unskilled immigration at present, so we don’t have quite the same problem with immigrants taking jobs away from unskilled native workers. Hence the unemployment rate is only about 3-4 percent, which is one of the lowest in the OECD.

Other than actually bite the bullet and reduce immigration, there is little governments can do to shield citizens from the impact of expansive immigration. For example, the Labour government has attempted to reduce poverty by reintroducing family benefits, but any benefits from increased government spending has largely been canceled out by the increasing cost of housing, food and utilities.

1 Comment | Demography, Environmental issues, Immigration | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman

Ducking demographic problems

April 12, 2008

Amid the recent criticisms of New Zealand First for questioning Asian immigration, liberal political pundits have overlooked the fact that Statistics New Zealand is predicting the population of NZ will grow to over five and half million by 2026 (that’s about what you get if you add up their predictions for the country’s major ethnic groups).

Such a population increase will mean that the country will have to take a whole new approach to power supply and infrastructure development.

New Zealand, with just over million citizens is one of the few countries in the world that obtains almost all its electricity needs from hydroelectric power stations. This has been a cornerstone in the country’s “clean green” anti-nuclear image that’s been promoted by the Labour Party.

However, the nation is now at a crossroads. Nearly all the best sites for hydroelectric power generation have already been developed and if the population increases by the amount predicted by Statistics NZ, then Nuclear or Coal power will become essential. Wind power, while a useful supplement to other forms of energy, just doesn’t produce enough power on a consistent basis to provide for a population increase of this magnitude.

Similarly, big investments will have to be have to made in the countries transport infrastructure. The many roads and bridges built between the 1930s and 1960s, are now beginning to deteriorate under increased traffic, and further population growth will mean that many will have to be either rebuilt completely or expanded to accommodate greater traffic volumes.

At present, there are no motorways linking any of the country’s main cities, and if the population increases by over a million it will become essential to put in dual carriageways on the busiest routes, such as the infamous road between Auckland and Hamilton. This will consume a huge amount of public spending and put an end the Greens’ hopes of running down the roading budget and putting more money into public transport.

It’s fast getting to stage where the country’s so called environmentalists (which now apparently includes the National Party) will have to decide whether they should continue to follow a liberal approach, in favour of expansive immigration and a utopian faith in alternative energy and public transport, or a hard-headed conservative approach, which puts limits on immigration as well as economic excesses.

Leave a Comment » | Demography, Environmental issues | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman

Common sense on climate change

October 13, 2007

It’s refreshing to see Rodger Kerr of the business round table beginning to acknowledge there may be a down side to moving western manufacturing firms to China.

“There is a fundamental lack of logic in seeking to scale back internationally efficient industries such as agriculture, aluminium and steel when the production shortfall may be taken up by industries in other countries that generate greater emissions.”

While it is probably unrealistic to try and protect labour intensive industries from Asian competition, energy intensive industries which depend on technology rather than cheap wages, should not be easily surrended.

Overseas readers may also be interested to know that while NZ’s Labour government often criticises Australia and the US for not signing up to the Kyoto Protocol, it encourages New Zealand firms to export significant quantities of coal half way across the world to Japan – go figure.

Leave a Comment » | Environmental issues, NZ economy | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman

Immigration and emissions

June 30, 2007

Environmental pollution essentially comes down to two basic variables – population growth and industrialisation. This is something anyone with a little common sense and imagination should be able to grasp.

So it comes as a continual surprise to me how concerned the New Zeland Green party is with defending the rights of prospective third world immigrants.

Third world countries have much lower CO2 emissions levels than developed nations, so from an environmental perspective, third world immigration is bad news for the planet.

New Zealand greens love to advertise the country’s anti-nuclear credentials, but seem oblivious to the fact that our renewable power sources will be not be able to cater for a larger population at a first world standard of living.

US Blogger Brent Lane has crunched a few numbers and made a plausible estimation of the impact of illegal immigrants on US emissions levels.

Yet more evidence that pro-immigration Marxism is about as compatible with real environmentalism as bear-baiting is with buddhism.

3 Comments | Environmental issues, Immigration | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman

« Previous Entries