LET'S KEEP IT REAL ON POPULATION.

Submitted by webadmin on Sun, 25/07/2010 - 1:26pm

Population policy is now on the Australian agenda and it is very welcome that we place population at the centre of all policy. I hope this is a genuine move by Government, and not just rhetoric or “dog whistling” as some commentators have described it.

Up until now, Australia has relied on a passive population policy, with issues of health, education and infrastructure reacting to peaks and troughs and population movement within and into and out of Australia. Population has therefore been a secondary consideration in policy development and it has been very difficult to properly plan where and how key services should be delivered. For this reason alone, it is therefore a significant moment for Australia if we are now seeing a shift to population being at the heart of policy development, as it will make planning for health, education, roads and bridges much more strategic and reliable as a consequence.

I shared the ‘guest speaker’ platform in Sydney last month at a sustainable population breakfast with entrepreneur Dick Smith, and it was a consensus politics moment where Labor MP’s spoke in Melbourne and Perth, Liberal MP’s spoke in Adelaide and Perth, and a sense of unity across the Parliament was presented on this critical issue around the country at the same time. I hope to see the latest announcements by the Prime Minister developed further, as it is in the detail where the success or failure of an explicit population policy lies, but the noises so far are generally to be welcomed on the Mid-North Coast, where population pressure and demand for quick infrastructure are both alive and well.

And specifically on immigration policy, I know there are many people who worry about issues in relation to asylum seekers, refugees, ‘illegal’ immigrants, ‘boat people’, or whatever descriptor you might currently be using. Being a recipient of most emails on this topic, and listening closely to ‘street-talk’, I am aware of a lot of incorrect information that is making its way into people’s ‘in-boxes’ on their computers, or is being sold as fact in the local pub.

I genuinely ask anyone who wants to get to the bottom of this challenging policy area, to contact our office on 6584-2911 for detailed information that might help with personal views. We have a number of factual resources that can help clarify a lot of the language used in this policy area (there really is no such thing as an ‘illegal immigrant’, or a ‘boat person’, for example), the true statistics, and the options that all policy-makers from all political persuasions are wrestling with.

By all means let’s have debate, but I would hope we’re a community that wants factual debate, and debate that is beyond simple political gain. And from my perspective, the very fact someone has to get into a boat to try and come into Australia should put into perspective what a strategic advantage we’ve got on this topic compared to the many land-locked nations of the world where people movement is out of control.

In Australia, we are the ‘moat people’ due to the vast amounts of water around our country, and we can therefore manage this issue a lot more, and a lot better than most other countries in the world. And that is despite whatever or whoever we’ve got in political office on any given day.

Submitted by rodrickau on Sun, 22/08/2010 - 2:26pm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zu0kCa61VSo Dear Rob, I have been researching the atmosphere since a science student gave me a J curve on the soil evaporation rates in Adelaide in 1989 at the Flinders University. The film above shows what happens when the science fraternity remains unable to transfer their data into policy. Twenty years later, institutions like BOM and CSIRO find themselves without Carbon Dioxide meters in the right place and at the right time. In short, incompetence and corruption at the tertiary level have flowed into state departments, and led to denial that an Atmosphere Alert is on the agenda for mothers with babies on the floor. Carbon Dioxide is a heavy gas and falls to the floor rapidly. (take one balloon and fill with beer gas, then knot it, hold out at arms length and then drop it. You will then see what I mean.) The public health issue in certain geographies and the danger to the dog and horse racing industry will explode the environment issue into new a dimension as we realize the imminent danger to ourselves, our loved ones, and our pets and livestock. rest assured that when the time comes, a solution will be assembled. This assembly however, must contain a speaker free conference, i.e., A venue, a mumble session with coffee and cake, then the seating, the lights go out, a visual presentation no longer than ten minutes takes place, the lights go back on for 5 minutes to fill out a survey and comment sheet which is collected and complied while another 10 minute presentation is viewed. Following 3 presentations and 45 minutes, the mumble session resumes with fresh coffee and more cake for another 15 minutes. Re-seating takes place and we repeat the above. Then we break for lunch and relaxation for 90 minutes. We then move out of the speaker free mode to address the results of the correlations of the films and presentations iterating that it is purely a solutions concept by now because we will all be aware that we are not able to breath properly and that horses have died on the track due to heart failure through lack of oxygen.