In September last year there seemed to be no real opposition to Prime Minister Rudd's plans for a "Big Australia". There had been a staggering 876,222 arrivals in Australia in 2008 and the Immigration Minister was happy for this to continue:
Senator Evans said immigration should be the nation's labour agency, meaning a continued high intake of migrants ... Decisions about who came to Australia would increasingly be left to employers.
Tony Abbott, the Leader of the Opposition, had also declared himself to be in favour of a Big Australia:
My instinct is to extend to as many people as possible the freedom and benefits of life in Australia. A larger population will bring that about provided that it’s also a more productive one.
But the policy wasn't going down well amongst the working-class voters of western Sydney. As the election approached, it was one of the issues which was dooming the ALP to electoral defeat. And so Kevin Rudd was dramatically axed by his own party as PM, and Julia Gillard installed in his place. And her first policy initiative was to declare herself opposed to Rudd's Big Australia policy:
Australia should not hurtle down the track towards a big population. I don't support the idea of a big Australia... We need to stop, take a breath and develop policies for a sustainable Australia.
Gillard also announced as PM that it was OK to have a debate on issues of border security:
"People should feel free to say what they feel," she said.
"For people to say they're anxious about border security doesn't make them intolerant. It certainly doesn't make them a racist. It means that they're expressing a genuine view that they're anxious about border security ...
"So I'd like to sweep away any sense that people should close down any debate, including this debate, through a sense of self-censorship or political correctness."
Nor is Tony Abbott talking anymore about "as many as possible". The Liberal Party has now put forward a "contract" which sets limits to immigration in terms of the need to provide adequate infrastructure:
Contract 6: Link population growth to the provision of better infrastructure. The Coalition will set immigration numbers on the basis of economic and environmental sustainability.
Of course, politicians will say anything to win elections. Neither party has committed to an exact migration level, although the Liberal Party has nominated a figure under 180,000 per year until a review has taken place.
Former Labor Party leader Mark Latham is sceptical that Gillard will deliver cuts to migration:
Former Labor leader Mark Latham has labelled Labor's position on population growth "a fraud of the worst order", saying immigration numbers must be slashed.
Speaking on Sky News on Wednesday night, Mr Latham said it was not good enough for Prime Minister Julia Gillard to simply call for a debate on population, and she had to put forward a concrete plan on the issue.
Ms Gillard's "sustainable" population call was not backed with any substance and was a "fraud" designed to appeal to western Sydney voters sensitive to the asylum seeker issue, Mr Latham said.
"It's clever politics but it's a fraud. It's a fraud of the worst order," he said.
The former Labor leader said Australia needed to "take off the population pressure".
His comments followed statements by Ms Gillard on Sunday that she did not want to specify a population target but did not support the idea of "a big Australia".
It has to be remembered as well that immigration numbers began to skyrocket at the end of John Howard's Liberal Government, so it's not only Labor that we have to be careful about on this issue.
Even so, there are reasons to welcome the breaking up of the "Big Australia" consensus. It means, first of all, that there's more room for an open airing of views on the immigration issue. There have even been immigration sceptical columns appearing in the Melbourne Age newspaper (who would have thought?).
It demonstrates too why traditionalists shouldn't succumb to defeatism. You never know when the political situation is going to change, and the more we manage to build up some influence, the more we'll be able to intervene when opportunities arise to push things along in the right direction.
Finally, there's some evidence that the Liberal Party really has changed for the better on this issue. I'd prefer to present the evidence in my next column. It's not a complete break with past policy, nor is it really what traditionalists would want in the longer term, but I think it might be good enough to vote for. But it deserves a column of its own.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteYes I saw the Liberal immigration opposition minister on the box tonight and he said he was going for less than 180,000 down from 300,000. I didn't realise it had got as bad as 800,000 plus. Is this citizen arrivals or temporary work and students too?
The Australian newspaper is arguing that this is a bad trend and continues to make the case for a growing population as a requirement of economic growth. Although there are hesitant voices there too.
This is a quote from John Wanna in the Australian today:
ReplyDelete"The spectre of a population bomb might make for smart politics in an election context, appealing to focus group anxieties and reminding voters that politicians are concerned with for them.
But it is cynical politics, probably disingenuous and certainly expedient. Possibly it is not meant to be taken seriously, and the business community should keep its collective hair on and ignore the sentiment.
Post-election, I guess, we will probably return to normal growth politics but lets hope more informed debate can occur on the quality of life in our communities. Then the population debate might have achieved something more than merely satisfying the hot-button reflexes of focal groups for a few frenetic weeks."
Post election its back to "normal" growth. The open embrace of cynicism by the paper is quite appalling. They are meant to represent the public after all and not the business and technocrat interests.
What has happened here though is that the consensus on immigration silence has been broken. This will be a very hard genie to put back in the bottle.
Jesse wrote,
ReplyDelete"What has happened here though is that the consensus on immigration silence has been broken. This will be a very hard genie to put back in the bottle."
That's exactly right. This is great news, and Mr. Wanna knows it. Of course he sounds snobbish and dismissive: he's linking his own social prestige with a snobbish attitude toward patriots to turn other middle and upper class Australians away from you. That he has to resort to unsubstantiated, empty appeals to status says a lot about the soundness of his position. Let's hope other Australians notice.
Batholomew, if you don't mind how do you see the situation going in America? I don't follow it closely.
ReplyDeleteThe downside of the present argument is that its phrased only in terms of "sustainablity" at the moment. That is too many people, too much congestion, not enough services, evironmental and quality of life issues. I'm not even sure that house prices are front and centre in that.
ReplyDeleteNonetheless its a start and it has dominated the airways in a way that wasn't anticipated.
Jesse wrote,
ReplyDelete"Batholomew, if you don't mind how do you see the situation going in America? I don't follow it closely."
Well, there's this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5YI2bFd5LQ
The latina is ridiculous, of course. But I was struck by two things: first, the number of calm, rational, ordinary Americans who neither backed down nor matched her hysterics. They let her play the clown, and she performed spectacularly. And second, the convergence of the Tea Party movement (which opposes Obama's socialism) with the Minuteman Movement (which opposes open borders and, tepidly, anti-white aggression).
This may be a sign that more Americans are noticing the link between Obama, socialism, anti-white aggression and open borders. If they are, I don't think it's far-fetched to expect our resistance to all of those programs grow stronger.
Thanks for asking.
I think framing anti-immigration arguments in terms of leftist pet projects aka 'sustainability' is key for Aussies. Simply because there are no counter-arguments that the left has for it. Every other argument can be broken down with a quick racist catcall.
ReplyDeleteIt goes back to what Steve Sailer had to say about Northern versus Southern California....the whites are both idiots...but Northern California has stayed nicer for longer because of such pansy pansy Leftist Environmental issues.
We here in the US can't use Environmental Issues to stop immigration because a) we're outnubmered b) not enough of us are vegans c) There is Plenty of Land.
I'm going to go do Yoga now and have Wheat Grass Shot!! (I actually am a vegan hehe! except I eat fish)
Oh but I do think Abbott and Julia are liars and I'll believe it when I see it.
Oh wait I forgot the reason why in the US we can't use environmental reasons to stop immigration.
ReplyDeleteBecause investment wizard David Gelbaum gave the Sierra Club 100 million om 94/95 but only on one condition---That it drop it's anti-immigration platform. Which ironically coincides with the Prop 187 defeat in California at the hands of activist judges (and subsequent dismissal by Gray Davis).
As documented extremely well by Brenda Walker...
http://blog.vdare.com/archives/2006/08/15/sierra-club-sellout-not-forgotten/
http://www.vdare.com/walker/sierra_media_war.htm
Jesse,
ReplyDeleteIn 2008 there were 172,000 who arrived as "regular" immigrants, 48,000 New Zealanders who moved here and 658,000 who moved here with work permits.
According to Liberal Party research, Rudd averaged a real figure of about 300,000 immigrants per annum.
It's good to see that the Liberals are attacking Labor for not specifying an immigration target. The Liberals are now publicising something I found buried in a document, that they will initially bring down immigration from 300,000 to 180,000:
In a live debate on the issue aired on ABC Television on Thursday night, Mr Morrison said immigration was a major factor in population pressure.
He said reducing Australia's immigration level to 180,000 a year would be a starting point in developing a sustainable population growth policy.
'I do not believe that a sustainable rate of population growth were we currently are at over two per cent is something that any independent analysis could support as being sustainable,' Mr Morrison said.
'If Julia Gillard says she's not for the 36 million figure by 2050 then she either has to sign up to at least 180,000 or less or she's not serious.'
He's right of course. The projections have been done and you can't claim you don't support the 36 million figure and then not reduce the 300,000 per annum level of immigration.
The Labor Party reply was not promising. The minister spoke about redistributing population pressure rather than about reducing immigration.
Sounds like Australia is in a similar position to New Zealand in 2002. Just prior to 2002 there had been a big wave of Asian immigration and the immigration- restrictionist NZ First party got about 11 percent of the vote in the 2002 election, this forced the Labour government into an alliance with them, and Labour was forced to modify its immigration policy.
ReplyDeleteSince then immigration has been somewhat lower and immigration is more closely related to skills.
Rudd does appear to hav made a lot of blunders. Attacking the mining industry, by saying the mining industry was undermining the education industry was a huge blunder from an pro-immigration point of view.
Creating an alliance between immigration restrictionists and the mining industry would be a liberal elites worst nightmare, and he almost did it, maybe he should have stayed in a bit longer.
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteI think that in always looking for a background deal or conspiratorial answer to every issue shows you're in danger of confusing cause and effect. America is a very large country and there are numerous contributing factors to every issue. The idea that you can put all issues down to being caused by this or that shady deals is not correct.
The real issue is not that some leftist donated money on this or that basis (there are millions of different financial influences on these issues) but why leftists are generally opposed to immigration restrictions. That's the actual cause. Finding some donor somewhere or the background of some name might make you feel smart and let you praise your research skills and ingenuity, but it doesn't explain the larger reality of the situation. I'm sure you're guffawing at that though, so good on you.
The environmental argument in Australia is essentially that, an argument. Its language and no one person has a monopoly on. The environmental language is used because it is acceptable and because it can be used to get the votes of outer suburban people. These people are nonetheless not especially known for their environmentalism o rate it as a particularly high priority issue, but still have concerns over immigration.
Also the "sustainability" argument here isn't actually used as an environmental argument but as a quality of life argument. That there are too many people and not enough services and infrastructure to support them all so existing residents are negatively affected. Its essentially the Aussie desire to live well that is being taped into, buying a house with a big quarter acre block, going to the beach and not having it too crowded, getting a seat on the bus etc, rather than true environmentalism.
Immigration is a difficult issue in the US for the same reason that it is here. Saying no to it makes leftists feel like conservatives (superior racists), which they don't want to do; Democrat and Labor parties increasingly court the immigrant vote to win elections; There is an ideological iconoclastic satisfaction in being so race neutral (and superiorly generous) that you let in anyone and everyone; And supporting immigration is seen as an economic issue or necessity, so you gain mainstream economic credibility by arguing for it.
The immigration as environmental issue is a much more recent phenomena. We in Australia are scratching our heads as to why its happening but can basically say its based on the self indulgence of the Left Green voters, (ie they don't want to share) and also a general belief that human progress is bad and damaging to the environment. That there are too many humans on the planet and that we shouldn't encourage population growth by taking in immigrants.
Mike,
ReplyDeleteWe also had a shot at immigration when Howard came in 96. The effort then was to move away from "compassionate" immigration, policies like family reunion which were being used to bring extended families in, to more specific skills focused immigration. Tying immigration so closely to the economy had the effect of making immigration more acceptable and so when the numbers eventually went up it wasn't a political issue.
Jesse,
ReplyDeleteIf there were no such things as conspiracies then Prop 187 would have been made into California law in 1993---since it passed with a overwhelming majority. I've already gone over the history of that with you.
You discount my arguments yet provide no contradicting information other than your own personal opinion.
Whether I am right or not, I do know a lot of the history and the 'inner workings' of what went on (thanks to VDare! woohooo!). And yes...that does make me feel smart and knowledgeable, and yes I do like sharing it. But I'm sure you feel smart and knowledgeable when you post on this blog, which is why you do it---which is why WE ALL do it if truth be told.
Just because you and I disagree doesn't mean you have to make a point of putting down my arguments. Just ignore them.
The people who want to listen to my fun filled facts will listen and possibly learn things, and the people who don't want to listen don't have to and that's fine too.
We all have our place in the movement.
I don't turn against you, so don't turn against me.
And if you feel like I'm wrong, then please, give me a solid reason why I shouldn't be pissed that ONE MAN bought off the Sierra Club and that the people who tried to stop him were slandered and fired?
One more thing...
ReplyDelete"The real issue is not that some leftist donated money on this or that basis (there are millions of different financial influences on these issues) but why leftists are generally opposed to immigration restrictions"
That would require psychoanalysis and years of brain transplants!
You can't beat psychopaths in a debate...
Speaking of pyschopaths....I just found out that a certain major hedge fund manager in the US (won't mention the name don't want to get censored on the blog) has Shark art (remember the dead shark exhibit) and Dried Blood frozen in the form a head in the lobby and office of his Hedge Fund.....
You can't hold a 'debate' with a man who has his head sculpted in blood in his office with a bunch of rotting sharks around him (he had to pay 100K to get the dead sharks replaced). You can't 'convert' people like that to your way of thinking. What's worse, is because the guy is rich....You can't beat him either!
So instead, I have taken the tack to warning you all that a few psychopaths with TONS of money are controlling the debate and until we pass laws (like public campaign financing) we aren't going to win because these people will unfairly stack the decks against us.
Admit these people exist, admit that you can't debate them, then think how you can outsmart them and be one step ahead to head them off at the path.
Jessie did you hear about Journolist?
ReplyDeleteIf you haven't here are the latest from VDARE...(also this should be on mainstream sites as well)
http://blog.vdare.com/archives/2010/07/21/journolist-on-muffling-discussion-of-rev-wright/
http://blog.vdare.com/archives/2010/07/21/msms-journolist-scandal-call-them-racists/
Thanks for this post, Mark Richardson. Have you considered writing something specifically about The Australian's increasingly hysterical - in both senses of that adjective - recent front-page campaign for mass Third World immigration? This campaign is obviously being run in cahoots with the business community's traitors, not with old-fashioned leftists of the sort who howled against Blainey in the mid-1980s.
ReplyDeleteI think this has more to do with it than anything else.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/housing-market-a-time-bomb-says-investment-legend/story-e6frg8zx-1225880119320
R J Stove,
ReplyDelete"Have you considered writing something specifically about The Australian's increasingly hysterical - in both senses of that adjective - recent front-page campaign for mass Third World immigration?"
I think they're going so hard because they can see themselves losing the argument. As stated its not just the housing industry that are pushing this but broader business and the technocrats. Its elite opinion versus popular opinion and The Australian is coming out for the elites, "Immigration as economic reform".
People have been talking about this housing bubble for every but the prices just don't shift. I wonder how it will play out. Housing prices here are truly obscene.
ReplyDeleteI have to say ethnic voices have been very quiet on this immigration issue so far. I wonder how long that will last?
ReplyDeleteMark Said... "The Labor Party reply was not promising. The minister spoke about redistributing population pressure rather than about reducing immigration".
ReplyDeleteMark, Labor is addicted to mass immigration and NESB migrants. In every single seat in Australia where there is a NESB migrant majority (or large proportion) there is also a sitting Labor member.
Labor are traitors. They will lie and cheat and deceive the electorate to stay in power. The Liberals are no better. Under Howard people were able to migrate on the basis of a dodgy short course in cooking or hairdressing.
Our cities are barely recognizable now from what they were just a few years ago. When friends visit from Europe they are shocked and surprised that Australia is now very much an Asian country. It's entire identity has been transformed in less than a generation without even asking the people if they consent. Of course they don't but they haven't had any say.
There is now a palpable sense of anger that is growing in the community about uncontrolled mass-immigration and the pollies are going to start to feel the heat more and more.
Excuse the French but it's a bloody disgrace what they have done/are doing to this country and how we have let the bastards get away with till now.
I agree with your fury Anon, but not with your characterisation of the Liberal party. They brought the unemployment rate down to less than 4% during their term, the first time that's happened in decades. People are claiming this is in part because of immigration. A government has a responsibility to secure the nation's economic future as well as preserve its national identity and provide for its citizens. We need economic arguments to win this as well as justified rage.
ReplyDeleteOne thing about the Australian newspaper online is they allow a fair freedom for the publishing of comments. Go there and you'll see a fair debate is going on about this issue.
I'd like to raise another dimension if I can. I was just reading Paul Kelly in the Australian and he has raised strategic implications or defence matters in relation to immigration:
ReplyDelete"The strategic dimensions of this issue demand an article in its own right. Suffice to say that Australia's reputation as a new world immigrant society is fundamental to its global image. Having a new Prime Minister elected on a platform of opposing a Big Australia has the potential to "take off" if various overseas media decide to press this button. Australia's postwar immigration model has not just been in the national interest. In a globalised world of strong population growth the idea that Australia, a rich nation of only 22 million people occupying a continent, can announce its selfish intention of embracing a new smaller pathway to boost its own quality of life while simultaneously denying boat people, constitutes a recipe for serious strategic troubles.
Aside from the rubbish of the "selfish" assertion, its our country, the claim is that if we don't have a substantially larger population we're in danger of being taken over. If we don't have good relations with Asia, ie take in a lot of their immigrants *choke*, we'll piss them off and make ourselves a target.
The second argument implies we should become a protectorate of Asia or we should kiss ass in the hopes of their good will, which is always fatal. The first is that we need a larger population for defence.
My assumption was always that when it came to war fighting in the modern world science mattered far more than population. So that put the emphasis on the stealth bomber, the A-bomb and missile defence, rather than battalions. Is the point that we need a growing population for defence possibly valid though?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSorry I'm reading a lot of The Australian stuff at the moment. On my previous post there should be a closed quotations after "reciepe for strategic troubles".
ReplyDeleteWhat we need is a nuclear armed Australia to keep our neighbors respectful. That will surely alter the "strategic balance" in the region in our favour.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, we need at least 18 months conscription for every able-bodied person under 25. That, alone, will probably half our immigration rate overnight.
Thirdly we need to make abortion illegal. That will help to make up for the declining birth rate. It may also teach young people to consider their responsibilities for a change instead of obsessing over their rights.
"Secondly, we need at least 18 months conscription for every able-bodied person under 25. That, alone, will probably half our immigration rate overnight."
ReplyDeleteThat'll definitely do it ;).
I am compelled to assent, albeit mournfully as the reality confirms my direst apprehensions, with the comment anonymously published at 9:02pm, July 23, that;
ReplyDelete"Mark, Labor is addicted to mass immigration and NESB migrants. In every single seat in Australia where there is a NESB migrant majority (or large proportion) there is also a sitting Labor member."
I dwell within the South Australian state constituency of Norwood, which before the last election was held by the ALP on the thinnest margin conceivable. The population in Norwood throughout is middle-to-upper bourgeois.
The sole Labor partisan distributing leaflets and wearing their livery at the primary school (where I attended ten years ago) polling station, was a middle-aged Negro immigrant who spoke tremulous, broken English.
More such persons are being lodged in formerly clean, respectable homes bought with our money in the suburb, turning us slowly into Adelaide's Harlem.
Moreover, the first Negro I ever saw myself outside of the television or film, was no earlier than 2006 (I'm aged 20 years at present), in the vicinity of the Centrelink state welfare office. In the interval, of the dozens I've spied, not one has been behind the counter or by the furnace actually working; only spending money they did not earn.
ReplyDeleteThe Centrelink is usually full of them and Polynesian no-hopers, not an Anglo-European Aussie or even Asiatic to be perceived.
It's well-known, but no acceptably spoken (remember the unhappy fate of the Japanese PM), that Negroes everywhere are a 'net drain' on the economy, other than consuming public benefits and depressing the white working classes' wages, they are utterly unproductive (note Southern Rhodesia and now South Africa, also Mississippi, etc).
Where is the Australia of my youth? At the local public primary school I attended 1994-1998, we were all, Anglo-Celtic, Italian, Dutch, Greek,, Serbian, Polish, even Brazilian, all "hideously white".
"People have been talking about this housing bubble for every but the prices just don't shift. I wonder how it will play out. Housing prices here are truly obscene."
ReplyDeleteThe interesting thing about housing in this part of the world is that prices rarely crash dramatically, like they sometimes to do in the U.S. and Britain.
We're probably locked into high cost housing now, as only a severe depression could have a big impact on house prices.
The rise in house prices has been caused by a combination of left liberal regulation and right liberal immigration boosterism, plus government policy which focuses on loaning people money to buy houses without actually increasing the housing supply.
One thing that annoys me is that the government prefers to pay solo mums a lot of money to live in family bangalows, instead of building cheap terraced housing for them and thus freeing up older private sector housing (which was originally built for nuclear families, not one kid solo parents) for young families.
Love the conscription idea for Ozzies. :) However, it won't fly and I wouldn't (I'm an American) support it for my country. If you think about it, it could massively backfire as well. If this was the United States, it would just give all those illegal aliens citizenship and be 18 months of enforced integration. (But whites make up a minority of under 18s in the US so it's a bit different then Oz)
ReplyDeletePaul Kelly is a nutter and that argument needs to be demolished ASAP. Technology and homogeneity make an army strong---not the size. Israel is a good counter example, Korea and Japan as well I would think. Furthermore, what good would it do to have an army of different races that are fractured like Yugoslavia?
If Paul Kelly wants a strong Australian Army and a Large Australia....Then Reinstitute White Australia Policy...then assimilation would not be a problem. Give white Afrikaners automatic citizenship (good fighter! I love South Africans!) Give us Americans a place to run to :) Please.....:) In fact, I'd write an article saying that Paul Kelly is actually Advocating a return to White Australia Policy based upon his desire for a strong military.
Dude do you guys think an article like that would get into The Australian? With all the racial splitting going on in the US, SA, Britain, and areas of Canada....Australia could implement a white australia policy geared towards whites who want to live in a specifically homogenous state :) I love it!! Poaching of high-IQ whites from the multi-cultural ex-white lands :)
Once the BNP posted a great article about Yugoslavia and how all the ethnic army factions broke up and killed each other. Can't find it though :(
ReplyDeleteOn my local city station they put up all the names of the kids in the army so I always stop and look to see the names of my friends from highschool. Almost all the names are white...like 98% of the names are white--and the few hispanic names are like white kids with hispanic surnames. I know like one asian kid who joined the military and that's it (he was from college.) This is really surprising since whites are a minority in my neighborhood.
So you know....having lots of different people in your country doesn't lead to a 'diverse' army. In fact, I just googled US army statistics...blacks and whites are overly represented in the US military while Asians are underrepresented and Latinos are EVEN MORE underrepresented! Woah! "Hispanics are largely underrepresented among new recruits, with troop-to-population ratios of 0.64 in 2006 and 0.65 in 2007."
So using US trends and statistics, importing tons of Asians and African Blacks is actually going to create a split between the racial makeup of the Army and the overall population which could lead to some interesting scenarios.
Furthermore, breaking down US military statistics by state one realizes that the highest military enrollment (aka the highest patriotism) occurs from Homogenous states...Alaska being a leading state.
http://www.heritage.org/static/reportimages/E8F05D884C7E78E45A200DC953ED3854.gif
Fun fun fun!
Oooh one more snotty thing....heheh...."But Maybe Paul Kelly (sounds Irish to me!) enjoys the idea of having an all-white Ozzie army rule over a land of mixed raced coloureds"
ReplyDeleteSorry :) Mean so mean! So mean!
OOh another mean thing...or Maybe when China attacks Oz the all white Ozzie army can use the ethnic chinese citizens as bartering tools...kinda like hostages :)
Sorry :) Couldn't help it....these liberals need to think before they Write (and so do I :) )
As regards the White Australia Policy (WAP) it was killed by traitors and cowards from Whitlam through to Hawke and even Howard.
ReplyDeleteThe same happened in the US when Edward Kennedy changed the rules in 1965 that led to a veritable flood of non-European immigration which is now making white Americans a minority in their own country. Nice one Teddy.
Anyone that wrote a serious article calling for the reinstatement of this policy would find the going very tough indeed. Pauline Hanson tried to do it in the 1990s and she was jailed by the establishment for her troubles.
For this reason, no-one bothers to argue the case much anymore. This is despite the fact that all our neighbors still vigorously practice their own versions of it today.
You cannot immigrate to Thailand, Indonesia, Taiwan etc unless you are ethnic Thai, Indonesian or Chinese etc. And yet we are the rednecks of Asia? Go figure my friends.
I recall recently that awful hag Tanya Pliberek saying on national TV that we as a nation now "regret the WAP".
Speak for your bloody self is what I thought and don't try to twist things according to your own warped pc view of history. The WAP created a country that had living standards and social environment that made it the envy of the developed and the developing world. How could anyone possibly regret that?
The map I gave a link to shows that there is Under-Representation in the Liberal North Eastern Seaboard States.
ReplyDeleteI feel like I need to address that so it can't be used as a counter-argument.
I think the history of these states are a bit different then the rest of the country----I'll make a bet that due to the weather farming was a rough go, and most men were sea-faring people. These are heavy family-oriented businesses...the sons work with the dad....So that would explain why there would not be as much willingness to join the army historically...as the labor was needed on the boats or the farm. Furthermore, that just validates my point that family history is a good indicator of military service...Back in the 1930s a large portion of white men served...so of course their sons and grandsons would serve as well. That's why the heavily white republican states have overrpresentation, and why Immigrants and their progeny are prone to underrepresentation.
Furthermore, there may be a slight argument that some of the settlers in those northern eastern liberal states were puritans or something but I don't know much about that and I could spin an argument validating my point on that as well :) Cuz that's what I do :)
Pauline Hanson is a true Australian Hero and anyone who had anything to do with her going to jail is condemned to the fiery pits of hell. (that was the american puritan in me talking)
For me, the issue is not so much "immigrants" as it is "immigrants who refuse to assimilate." I am always happy to see immigrants with a genuine appreciation and love for Australia (that means Australian culture, Australian values and Australian people) and I think those types of people should be allowed to come here regardless of their race, background, religion, etc etc.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that our policy of multiculturalism has completely wiped out that attitude. If I had a nickel for every immigrant who said things like "Australia would be great if not for Australians" I would be a millionaire. We've created a society where it is perfectly acceptable for anyone to waltz in and go "These things don't suit me, I want them changed."
What is so unreasonable about the slogan "Love it or leave it"?
Yeah I heard recently that under this "sustainability" argument there is a lot of "xenophobic, Judeo-Christian, etc etc sentiment", as if we should be attempting culture neutrality. I mean even most immigrants realise this is not their country and are sensible enough to keep their head down during this election. The problem is they get the vote, they're citizens, and this won't last.
ReplyDeleteAt the end of the day we're talking about immigration during this election because of the power of the ballot box. We let the immigrants in on mass and that's over.
Mr or Miss "Sick of it" is benevolent in their views but deluded.
ReplyDeleteIt is only becuase of people of a certain "race, background, religion, etc etc" that built the Australia he implicitly praises for all its virtues and amenities.
Zimbabwe has fields as fertile and mines as rich in treasure as this country, yet languishes in lawless, penurious tyranny. It is the people who made Zimbabwe so wretched and the quality of the people who created a wealthy, free and just Australia. Change the people, ruin the country.
Note: I previously published comments under the awkward title of "Fresh Traditional Conservative Proselyte".
To assimilate is to accept Western values. That takes you a lot of the way towards being a Westerner. I don't buy the concept that it's all in the blood.
ReplyDeleteConsider then, Mr Jesse, the case of Liberia.
ReplyDeleteEstablished in the 1820s by a society organized by philanthropic (white) American abolitionists, they repatriated black freedmen (and women) to Africa and built for them the rudiments of civilisation. The land is fertile, and diamond mines abound in the caves of the hinterland. The political constitution was an exact replica of that of the US.
Yet, Liberia in no sense can be deemed equal to even Mississippi in wealth and stability.
Consider also that a well-fed, well-equipped and much trained European runner despite many solid material advantages won't outpace the poor, half-starved Nigerian villager in a race.
Twins separated at birth and planted in opposite sides of the earth are found much later to have grown the same habits and opinions.
Nature is everything in predestining each man's abilities and purposes, like other animals. It's biology, not astrology - and disbelieving this amounts to an innocent but foolhardy liberal idealism.
I write this retaining a sincere esteem for your labours on this web-log in expostulating against destructive left-liberal measures.
To assimilate is to accept Western values.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's that straightforward.
An ethny is a group of people bound together by kinship, a shared history, a common language and by other factors such as culture and religion.
Assimilation depends on distance and numbers. The further distant someone is and the larger the numbers to be assimilated, the less possible a true assimilation becomes.
For instance, even if it were possible for 20 million African migrants to Australia to accept Western values, could it really be said that they could assimilate to the Anglo-Australian tradition?
Wouldn't they dramatically change the sense in which people felt bound together as an ethny with a common kinship, history etc?
Hesper,
ReplyDeleteI was sorry to read about the transformation of your own suburb in Adelaide.
I visited Adelaide a few years ago. It doesn't have quite the depth of Victorian and Edwardian heritage that Melbourne does, but it nonetheless had an attractive feel to it - the thought crossed my mind that it would be a good place to raise a family.
Can I encourage you not to get too demoralised and to continue to participate in an alternative politics? Even if it's just, for the time being, adding comments to sites like this one?
Every single intelligent voice raised in opposition counts at the moment.
It is all in the blood Jesse.
ReplyDeleteTo accept Western Values is to Be Western.
How many blacks hispanics or asians are members of the Republican Party? 5 people? And even those 5 have some weird little ideas if you look closely at what they say. There is always a 'tear down' the system underlying feeling---sometimes you get lucky and it is directed in a positive, helpful way. But that doesn't change the sentiment.
Furthermore, people act differently when they are 'individuals' and when they are in a 'group' setting. When a muslim is outnumbered, sure they'll act like you....but watch as they get into a group of all muslims. They will revert to their DNA---especially as they get older.
I was briefly, and agreeably, in Adelaide earlier this year. Overall I enjoyed it so much that I would happily consider living in that city. Whatever problems I witnessed (and yes, there were a fair few Third World immigrants visible on the University of Adelaide's campus), they seemed comparatively manageable by the Adelaidans themselves. Whereas Melbourne is now, as far as I can see, past redemption, and as for Sydney, its only conceivable future use will be if Hollywood has the courage to make a movie based on The Camp of the Saints.
ReplyDeleteYou can't ignore the numbers. I don't think real assimilation is possible the more immigrants there are.
ReplyDeleteYes I really enjoyed Adelaide too, it has a nice sense of slightly old world charm. Even though many of the residents are lefties.
Thank you for the kind encouragement Mr Richardson, but my own interests, of safety, of family and of pride in my nation and her people, attach me firmly to this cause whatever the chances of success.
ReplyDeleteTo Messrs Robert and Jesse; Adelaide is a pleasing, humdrum city surprised, and indignant, at her own decline.