Go Dick:
Dick Smith is launching an advertising campaign against ABC TV news and current affairs, which he says has warped the debate he has tried to spur over Australian population growth.
He claims both Labor and Liberal politicians have told him they agree that Australia needs to cut its immigration intake to avoid future social and environmental fracturing, but they say they cannot say so publicly because the ABC will label them racist.
“Endless growth and endless greed will mean more and more poorer people,” the entrepreneur says as he launches an ad campaign to curb population growth.
“This is warping our democratic process, it is basically treasonous,” the businessman and publisher told Fairfax Media.
He claims ABC television’s news and current affairs has deliberately ignored his campaign over the issue. In recent weeks Mr Smith has spent $1 million in advertising promoting his campaign to have Australia adopt a policy that would slash immigration numbers to around 70,000 – around the levels of the Hawke and Keating era – in order to see population level off at around 30,000,000.
A spokesman for the ABC said, “The claims by Mr Smith concerning ABC News are untrue and not supported by any evidence. The ABC has no position on the issue of population growth, has no ban on reporting on this subject, and has issued no decrees or any other type of instruction to staff about reporting on this issue.
…As part of his efforts to draw attention to what he views as the dangers of overpopulation, Mr Smith has also announced he will donate $2 million to marginal seat candidates in the next election who can demonstrate that they have a policy to limit Australia’s long-term population growth.
So far, he says, the only candidates likely to qualify for his funding are from One Nation.
But he says he expects Labor and Liberal will develop population policies – which he says are overwhelmingly popular.
“If they don’t, I’ll keep getting One Nation candidates elected,” he said.
Mr Smith rejects any suggestion the campaign is racist, pointing out that he supports increasing Australia’s refugee intake, and would not vote for One Nation himself because he disagrees with policies that reject climate science and would ban Muslim immigration.
At least Domainfax, which is equally biased, covered this, with the usual racial overtones.
I generally defend the ABC against accusations of bias but on this issue I can tell you that there is no doubt that Dick Smith is right. We have repeatedly seen comments on the deleterious impacts of immigration end up on the cutting room floor. Two experts that appeared on the recent Four Corners housing bubble expose said the same to me. As Leith has brought the issue of falling living standards into the national debate, like Dick Smith he has been forced to do it entirely via the right-wing press.
Indeed, my sources within the ABC, which are considerable, straight up confirm it.
There are very real and objective questions about how mass immigration into an oversupplied economy is systematically marginalising youth and working classes with lower wages, higher house prices and deteriorating services. These questions need to be discussed for the benefit of national equity, prosperity and sustainability.
Yet the ABC will not do it for fear of association with Pauline Hanson which, of course, only leaves the field open entirely for her to dominate it.
