Due to the current discussion by politicians and media on the very important issue of sustainable immigration, we are running the ‘Overpopulation’ advertising campaign once again in following newspapers:
The Australian – 01/03/18
The Canberra Times – 01/03/18
Sydney Morning Herald – 05/03/18
Financial Review – 05/03/18
The Age – 05/03/18
Please share with your friends, family and colleagues.
Thanks so much for all your contributions to Dick Smith Fair Go – to date, we have received a total of $120,111 and spent a total of $285,000 towards print advertising.
I was reading on the ABC web news site today where they have posted world migration numbers, which show Luxembourg as recording the planets highest growth, followed by Israel. I really do get sick and tired of this misinformation path such as what the ABC and their cronies choose to go down, there’s no doubt that any immigration spike in Luxembourg is due to the mass influx of refugees from the Middle East in recent times, and has nothing to do with general trends. If you look at the overall German population growth since 1960, it has flat lined, and the only western countries to show silly population growth due to unsustainable migration rates in recent times are the US and Australia, even Great Britten has leveled off.
The sad facts are that India, most African and Middle Eastern countries, along with many Asian nations, are the worlds biggest contributors to out of control population growth since 1960. Not even China has rivaled these countries in the population growth stakes due to their one child policy, and will soon be overtaken by India’s rampant growth. The overriding commonality among all countries that display natural Earth jeopardising population increase, is religion, and the unwillingness to advocate and implement educated birth control.
Keep up the good work Dick. I think you shoud put a new ad in newspapers. But this time emphasize over population on the environment. There are a lot of arrogant journalists and property developers think that the environment is only for the human species, ridiculously claiming that Australia is 2/3 empty! Over development and humans are encroaching the koalas habitat. I worry about population growth affecting housing affordability and quality of life. But mostly I worry about the environment and loss of Australian species.
Good point about needing more about environmental impacts. Here are a few: rubbish in bush near cities, large cities needing desal plants, need for water leaving rivers impacted with the Murray river mouth very impacted.
And another article highlighting the overpopulation issue causing housing affordability issues.
I’ll add, that many of us women are forced to stay in abusive and violent relationships because the alternative is to be homeless.
We’re often married to men that destroyed our careers or ability to work through the abuse, and they do this deliberately so that we can’t leave and that if we do leave we become homeless and destitute. This is a real issue, trust me! I live it and I know of other women that live it. We live in fear and terror.
This is an issue that most people have no idea about and therefore it’s not even on the radar to be addressed! It’s an urgent issue!
https://www.smh.com.au/national/older-women-migrants-swell-the-ranks-of-australia-s-homeless-20180314-p4z4c9.html
This overpopulation needs to stop globally, but even more so in Australia. Our native species are becoming extinct faster than ever. Australia’s fragile ecosystems were never designed to cope with mass population.
Interestingly, the greatest population growth comes from immigration. These migrants tend to come from countries that are already overpopulated, overcrowded and over-polluted, they’re spilling out like a virus wiping out every last bit of living environment.
People will say that Australia is a vast land, but it’s not really when you consider the majority of it is inhospitable.
The Australian way of life is definitely being eroded. The very lifestyle people are coming here for is being swept away by the influx and it needs to stop, it’s total madness and the politicians allowing it are irresponsible.
I believe Four Corners is running a program on population next Monday the 12th I’ll be watching.
Stephen Ferrier
I support reducing immigration, but not for the reasons your ad presents
– to reduce the kind of growing pains Melbourne has at the moment,
– to delay the time when we have to control populations of major cities, or use
measures like congestion charges to keep traffic moving, or limit family sizes.
– to make it possible to reach our climate change commitments, which are not
per-capita!
– limit urban sprawl around our cities, eating into farm and bushland and stretching infrastructure and commute times
Unfortunately the ad you use has two populist themes which are furphies. Australia has oodles of renewable energy waiting to be tapped, so more population won’t make it more expensive for pensioners, maybe even cheaper with economies of scale.
The apparent “obvious” link between jobs and immigration has many times been shown to be groundless. The number of jobs increases, immigrants don’t do the same kind of jobs, and indeed create new businesses. The effect on the economy is always an increase which some people like.
Dick is right that no politician in a main-stream party wants to touch this issue with a bargepole.
Hi Dick,
Congraulations on your efforts. They are so important! Keep up the great work. I have seen the latest advertisements and, as you would be aware if you have read my other correspondence to you, I have reservations. Of course, you are, no doubt, the marketing guru, but I will advance my concerns nevertheless, Should we not be incorporating a greater focus on environmental issues in advertising which, to date, has had a primary focus on economic issues (and occasionally social ones)? In other words, should we not be inviting people to think altruistically and not merely selfishly. I think the problem with our approach is that we risk alienating (or not securing support from) the well-meaning Left by taking a wholly economic approach in regard to the population question. The problem is that the Left (far) is locked into the notion that we cannot address population because it is anti-immigrant and, more bizarrely, anti-refugee. Economic arguments do not resonate because they appear to be all about ‘raising the draw-bridge’. However, the Left also has strong Environmental sympathies. The challenge facing the Left is that these agenda are essentially incompatible; perpetual growth (built via immigration) is incompatible with any genuine concern for the Environment. At some point, they will have to choose. Over the last decade, the social agenda (albeit desperately misguided) has won out over the Environmental agenda in organisations such as the Greens and GetUp! (and we can throw the ABC into this mix). Nevertheless, many of the Left are aware of the dilemma they face and are open to persuasion (in an Australian context) that a substantial reduction in population (via reduced immigration) is the best/only way forward. Yet, we are not doing very much to help them arrive at this conclusion. In the meantime, these organisations remain in opposition to efforts to arrest our population growth.
I am in constant communication with GetUp! on these issues. Occasionally, they reluctantly concede they on a one-way trip to nowhere with their environmental agenda so long as population issues are not addressed. Yet, it is social policy that continues to dominate.
We ought to be doing our bit to reverse this mind-set. I am convinced there is much more movement to be found on the Left in regard to the Immigration issue than there will ever be on the Right. The Left is essentially well-meaning, if naive. The Right is much more driven by self-interest and the ‘greed’ motive. The political Right supports immigration because it sees it pushing ‘growth’ and it caresnot a jot this ‘growth in perpetuity’ is, in every meaningful sense, unsustainable. The social Right opposes immigration because it believe immigrants take jobs away from Australians. Additionally, there concerns are primarily driven by issues of ethnicity and race. None in the Right have any regard for Environmental issues or Sustainability issues. These, however, are central to the platforms of ‘fair go’ and Sustainable Australia and Sustainable Population Australia (also organisations like the ACF, although this organisation is now desperately fearful of going anywhere near the population/immigration issue).
I am also hopeful that, if we put environmental issues more upfront, we are more likely, over time, to win over the ABC, although, no doubt, considerable time will be needed. It is, after all, population by intelligent people who ought, ultimately, be guided by the evidence.
BTW, we will all have noted the increased intention given to population issues by the ABC of late but this organisation is still a long way from finding its feet. Our most recent Four Corners episode address the impact of climate change on the Australian Landscape: “Weather Alert” I have not had time to view the entire episode but I guess there was no mention of population. More promisingly, next weeks episode apparently addresses the question “Are We Ready for Big Australia?” Although the title provides some cause for hope, it, nevertheless, filled me with foreboding. One wonders why not “Should We Have a Big Australia?” I have a sense the ABC has already made up its mind on ‘big Australia’ and that programme will be primarily about infrastructure, etc … I hope to be proved wrong.
Cheers,
Graham .