Losing the Australian Immigration Endgame By James Reed

     Here are some insightful comments critical of present Australian immigration policy, just for a change from me sounding off:
  https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/inquirer/were-the-big-losers-in-this-immigration-numbers-game/news-story/76c7538c9a22b7e4df275186fee52788

“This week the Morrison government announced its intention to reduce the annual cap on new permanent migrants from 190,000 to 160,000. This lower figure will apply for the next four years. The trouble with the announcement is that an effective cap of about 160,000 has been in place for the past two years. It’s a Clayton’s change — the cap change you have when you’re not having a cap change. In combination with other announcements, which will mean even more temporary migrants, the government has decided that the population will continue to grow at a rapid pace, mainly as a result of immigration. Rather than act on a very clear message from the public that the migrant intake should be cut, the government has preferred to appease various sectional interests while pretending otherwise. We should expect better, even of a government in its last throes. The bigger picture is that there has been a significant disintegration of the broad consensus on immigration — you could call it a settlement — that was achieved by prime minister John Howard. This consensus involved strong border protection preventing the entry of illegal migrants while expanding the pathways for legal migrants to enter and stay in the country. …

To give you a flavour, last year’s Lowy poll found there had been a 14 percentage point jump from the previous year in the proportion of respondents who agreed that “the total number of migrants coming to Australia each year is too high”. A majority (54 per cent) now agrees with this statement. A poll conducted by Essential Research last year also found that 54 per cent of respondents thought Australia’s population was growing too fast (only 4 per cent thought it was too slow) and 64 per cent expressed the view that the level of immigration had been too high during the previous 10 years. The poll found 37 per cent thought the level of immigration was “much too high”. Let me also just touch on a recent Newspoll survey in which the respondents from NSW were asked: “When thinking about the population of NSW, would you like to see the population of NSW increase, stay about the same or decrease?” Note that the question was not about population growth but about the level of population. A mere 16 per cent stated that they wanted the population to increase. About 55 per cent wanted it to stay the same and a quarter wanted it to decrease. Bear this in mind, there is no way that the population of NSW is about to stay the same given natural increase and the migrant intake.”

     Can it be, at this 11th hour, when the cities are dying that people are finally starting to wake up? Stranger things have happened.
  https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/three-amigos-population-policy-just-doesnt-add-up/news-story/4e23306c3322dbeb610bfee0ee659e10
  https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/as-the-migrant-intake-soars-coalition-stalls/news-story/bf84411a255002bbd0148d109752c191

“The key figure is net overseas migration: the latest figure will be released tomorrow. It counts everyone who is here for 12 months out of 16 months. It has been running at massively high levels — well over 200,000 and all the indications are that the latest figure will be higher again. The real take-home message is this: the Coalition government is completely captured by the big Australian lobbyists (think big business, industry associations, universities and some community groups) and won’t do a thing to reduce population growth. And bear in mind that Australia’s population growth is extremely high by the standards of developed economies and higher again in Sydney and Melbourne. Note that the Coalition’s stance is taken in the face of overwhelming evidence from multiple surveys that most Australians think the rate of population growth is too high and want the migrant intake to be cut. But rather than act in the national interest, the Coalition prefers to curry favour with its mates.”

     The politicians can read opinion polls as well as you and me, but the issue is that Big Business rules the country, and these monsters want profits over people, even if the country is ultimately destroyed. Hell, these guys don’t even care about the future of the planet, money is everything. This is probably the worse form of psychopathology a human could have, yet, they have the power. We are ruled by the mad, literally, as psychological research well confirms:
  https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/darwins-subterranean-world/201802/the-psychopath-next-door
  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/research-suggests-politicians-are-more-likely-to-be-psychopaths-11364143/
  https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/wellbeing/2017/06/17/are-politicians-psychopaths/
  https://www.amazon.com/Sociopath-Next-Door-Martha-Stout/dp/0767915828