Immigration

The Problem:
With sustained mass immigration bringing hundreds of thousands of people to Australia each year, major cities are choked with the influx. Rents and housing prices soar and public utilities such as roads, water, and public transport all struggle to cope with the demands of extra people.

The Facts:

• Immigration to be increased to 300,000 in 2008-09 in the biggest annual increase since the program’s inception.²

• The contribution made to population growth by immigrants (56.2%) is now twelve percentage points higher than that of natural increase (43.8%).³

• The livability of major cities declines as state governments scramble to implement mass transit roadways, power grids and desalination plants to cope with hundreds of thousands of new arrivals.⁴

The Solution:
Reducing immigration levels to 40,000 a year would ease pressure on housing, lessen demand and inflation in the economy, provide more opportunities for unemployed Australians to find work and is sufficient to counter effects of the aging population.

Multiculturalism

The Problem:
“Today we are bombarded by messages of the wonders of multiculturalism. We are urged that diversity, especially racial and ethnic diversity, is a good thing in and of itself. Yet the results of this study suggest that this is not necessarily the case. One negative outcome of ethnic and racial diversity is that it severely handicaps the ability of a society to provide minimum standards of living for its least advantages members. To the extent that we regard provision of such a standard a good thing, then multiculturalism must be judged a bad thing.”⁵

The Facts:

• Multiculturalism rejected by the Dutch parliament as a ‘30 year failure’.⁶

• International and Australian research shows that members of multicultural societies are less caring towards each other than members of more homogeneous societies.⁷

• Multiculturalism causing a more segregated society as a “de facto apartheid” is introduced to Sydney schools.⁸

The Solution:
Even supporters of multiculturalism must admit that it is a ‘bold experiment’.⁹ The question is whether millions of people and their ancient and diverse heritages should be made guinea-pigs when there is good reason to predict the experiment will fail. Australia should learn from the problems facing the rest of the world and construct a post-multiculturalism immigration policy.

Society & Welfare

The Problem:
The rise of the welfare state over the past 40 years has corresponded with increases in crime and other negative social problems such as illiteracy, illegitimacy, yob mentality and violence, lawlessness, drug taking, welfare dependency and hopelessness. A classic example of welfare payments leading to poor social outcomes is the payment of the $4000 baby bonus to children who have children.¹⁰

The Facts:

• Welfare payments to exceed $100 billion in 2008/09. That’s an annual welfare payment of $5,000 for every man, woman and child.¹¹

• In the mid-1960s, there were 22 workers for every working-age adult wholly dependent on welfare; today there are five.¹²

• The rates of abuse and neglect of children who live in sole parent families or step or blended families are 8 to 10 times higher than for children living with their natural parents.¹³

The Solution:
Welfare payments should be available for those that are suffering hardship. What qualifies a person to receive welfare should be tightened, corresponding with a reduction in tax rates.

Notes
[1] The Chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality in the UK, September 2005. View report from the BBC here
[2] Senator Chris Evans media release ‘Record skilled migration program to boost economy‘ Tuesday, 13 May 2008. Discussion on ABC Lateline program can be found here.
[3] Australian Bureau of Statistics, 3412.0 – Migration, Australia, 2006-07.
[4] See Bob Birrell interview here
[5] Welfare, Ethnicity and Altruism: New Findings and Evolutionary Theory (Frank Salter ed., 2004 pp 83).
[6] See report of Dutch parliament’s 2,500-page all-party report in London’s Telegraph: Dutch race policy ‘a 30-year failure’ and from the BBC: Dutch are ‘polarised’ says report
[7] Welfare, Ethnicity and Altruism: New Findings and Evolutionary Theory (Frank Salter ed., 2004). See also Andrew Leigh, 2006, ‘Diversity, Trust and Redistribution’, Dialogue, vol.25, no. 3, pp 43-49. Download here
[8] “de facto apartheid” quote from anonymous teachers and principals, reported in Sydney Morning Herald article White flight leaves system segregated by race. The same article reports on white flight segregating Sydney schools.
[9] J. Lack and J. Templeton, ‘Bold Experiment. A Documentary History of Australian Immigration since 1945′ (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1995).
[10] See report in The Australian: Child-mums in cycle of neglect.
[11] See Budget Paper No. 1, Budget Strategy and Outlook 2007‑08, Statement 6. Estimates of expenses by function, Social security and welfare.
[12] “Do We Still Need the Welfare State?” Paper presented at 8th Australian Institute of Family Studies Conference, Feb 2003 by Peter Saunders, Director of Social Policy Research, Centre for Independent Studies. Download here.
[13] “Marriage: Lite? Full Strength? Or Home Brew?” paper by Barry Maley, former Director of the Taking Children Seriously research programme, Centre for Independent Studies, 2002. View here.