Greens leader, Richard Di Natale, yesterday fronted the National Press Club for the first time since last year’s federal election and gave a 3,000 word speech outlining The Greens ‘vision’ and ‘accomplishments’.
To be fair, there was some good stuff in there. Di Natale banged on about addressing negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount in the name of housing affordability, as well as attacking the Coalition’s daft company tax cuts, and calling for ending “the corrupting influence of political donations from the big end of town”.
Notably, however, Di Natale once again failed to address the raging national debate over Australia’s mass immigration intake and a ‘Big Australia’.
This comes despite the latest federal government State of the Environment report, released last week, revealing that Australia’s natural environment is being placed under acute strain as Australia’s population grows out of control. This comes on top of growing concerns about the deleterious impacts mass immigration is having on living standards in the big cities, such as packed trains, worsening traffic congestion and deteriorating housing affordability.
One would have thought that an environmentally-focused party like The Greens would have at least acknowledged the immigration elephant in the room, rather than sweeping it under the rug?
Is wasn’t always like this. As documented in Green Left Weekly in 1998, fears of being associated with Pauline Hanson’s “racist” and “xenophobic” views caused The Greens to abandon their policy of “stabilising” Australia’s population and “a zero net migration policy” to one of opposing cuts to immigration. Since that time, Australia’s population has surged by nearly 30%, mostly via immigration, without a whimper of opposition from The Greens or the left more generally.
Former Prime Minister John Howard wedged the left even further when he performed an immigration ‘bait-and-switch’ in the early-2000s, effectively slamming the door shut on the relatively small number of refugees arriving into Australia by boat all the while stealthily shoving open the door to economic migrants arriving here by plane.
John Howard never articulated to the Australian people that the Government was going to dramatically expand the nation’s immigration intake. Why? Because he knew the electorate would be dead against it. Instead, Howard scapegoated refugees to give the impression that he was stemming the migrant inflow while proceeding in secret with his ‘Big Australia’ plan.
And rather than oppose the subterfuge, The Greens abandoned their roots and stood by silently for fear of being labelled “racist” and “xenophobic” if they opposed such high levels of immigration.
So, rather than “stabilising” the population, as initially advocated by The Greens, Australia is now on track to nearly double in size to around 40 million people by 2055:
Driven by annual population growth that is nearly twice as high as the post-war average, mostly via immigration:
With both Melbourne and Sydney projected to grow at a breakneck pace for decades to come:
The fact of the matter is that there are few better policy solutions to protect Australia’s environment and living standards than limiting population growth and abandoning plans for a ‘Big Australia’, which necessarily means significantly cutting immigration.
Australia’s birthrate of 1.8 is below replacement level and the nation’s population would stablise at 27 million by 2060 under zero net overseas migration, according to the Productivity Commission. By contrast, if current mass immigration setting are maintained, Australia’s population will exceed 40 million – a difference of at least 13 million people (see below chart).
The above highlights the complete and utter negligence of The Greens. Despite their purported concerns for the environment, they have remained deafly silent on Australia’s world-beating immigration program and have refused to argue the case publicly for a smaller and more sustainable population for Australia.
In his speech, Di Natale was adamant The Greens could double its primary vote to 20% within a decade. However, they have no chance of getting there unless they represent ordinary Australian’s concerns, live up to their name, and advocate for a smaller population trajectory on behalf of Australia’s environment and living standards.
