Migration

A Coalition suggestion that migrants need deodorant classes is an outrageous, racist furphy. It’s an absolute myth that Poms are soapdodgers.

Now, let's talk about personal hygiene. Pic: Patrick Hamilton

Opposition citizenship spokeswoman Teresa Gambaro has suggested new immigrants should be taught about wearing deodorant and waiting patiently in queues.

She wants employers to give mandatory “cultural awareness training” to immigrants arriving under visas such as the 457s.

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  • Martet says:

    10:35am | 13/01/12

    Havaianas??? I had to google it to find out what they were - try “thongs”. Read more »

  • Sam says:

    07:40am | 13/01/12

    Ok. We have a general comment made by a polly (lets not kid ourselves, we know groups she was referring to), Tory has taken the piss and directed it at the Poms who still make the largest immigrant group (yes it was funny), yet not racist. If Tory had done… Read more »

 

A growing population is not the result of over-zealous politicians and bureaucrats or big business trying to expand their market.

Cartoon by The Australian's Peter Nicholson

It is a result of Australians being healthier, living longer, and having more children. It is because people from around the world want to come here to work, travel, live and study.

Population growth is neither an impending disaster nor something we should blindly strive for—it is simply happening as a result of our economic progress and the collective desires of millions of people.

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  • Oriceake says:

    02:06pm | 17/04/12

    click to view <a >elegant graduation dresses</a>  , just clicks away Read more »

  • kumar says:

    07:06pm | 09/12/11

    Australi and USA are the 2 countries, that will see a wave of immigrants from developing countries. Australia is lucky in the sense unlike USA, australia is sorrunded by waters so no border crossing of millions of unskilled workers and as you pointed out, most of immigrants are skilled professionals,… Read more »

 

Yesterday I wrote to Prime Minister Julia Gillard expressing concern about a report in The Economic Times,  that Australia intends to ‘target’ Chandigarh, Punjab and other cities in northern India with a promotional campaign in 2012 looking to attract skilled migrants.

Cartoon by The Australian's Peter Nicholson

I told the Prime Minister I do not want the number of skilled migrants to increase, and do not support Australia running promotional campaigns to try to attract migrants.

I cannot see how running promotional campaigns to attract skilled migrants is consistent with the Prime Minister’s pre-election statements that she does not believe in a ‘Big Australia’ and that ‘we need to stop and take a breath’.  I also think this pre-empts the Sustainable Population Strategy for Australia being developed by Population Minister Tony Burke.

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  • Adamsky says:

    08:07am | 22/03/11

    No we will not need a lot of people to “hit the ground running” because that just means that in addition for tax payers having to fork out money for the re-construction, they will have to also fork out money for more housing and infrastructure for the new “skilled immigrants”.… Read more »

  • Adamsky says:

    10:07pm | 21/03/11

    I agree totally Kelvin. But as of now, I have never heard anyone telling the electorate what do to stop population growtht? As far as population growth is concerned there is no democracy. Please tell us what to do to influence the policy to reduce population growth. Read more »

 

It is easy to dismiss the growing backlash to population growth as a case of national NIMBYism, but the story could have more to do with the capacity of our major capital cities to deal with any extra people.

Our cities can't take much more

While there was lively debate over the idea of a new city in yesterday’s Punch the latest Essential Report shows the real issue is whether the government should tell new arrivals to go bush.

In what could be a real clue to the Federal Government in how to handle this difficult issue, most Australians actually support an increase in the population of major regional centres and smaller regional towns.

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  • Front Man says:

    01:04pm | 26/04/10

    Spot on, Robert. Politicians from all sides will try to pander to the seats where the population is already settled into marginal, urban and suburban seats. Anything they will or can do has to be sold into the marginals, and in SA’s case that means stripping out any stable Government… Read more »

  • acotrel says:

    06:29pm | 22/04/10

    We need a rethink about the education system in rural areas.  Project Management is a basic business skill needed for development of infrastructure.  In Goulburn Ovens TAFE, it is taught as one subject in an information technology course.  So tradesmen don’t get exposure to it, nor do engineers and scientists!… Read more »

 

Welcome to sunny Big Australia, the land of opportunity, where you’re welcome to be one of 36 million of us by the year 2050 - as long as you’re prepared to live, oh, about 4,000 kms from the Opera House.

Illustration: The Daily Telegraph's Warren Brown

The Punch set out last week to find out just how tolerant Australians are of the idea of the kind of population growth being considered by the Federal Government, and more to the point, how it should be managed.

What we found on the streets of Sydney, the country’s most under pressure city, is a political nightmare for both sides of politics. While Sydneysiders are quite open minded about welcoming more Australians, 70 per cent said we’d need a whole new city to house them, and that city should be far, far away.

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  • dmmaseoseoseo says:

    01:22pm | 13/12/11

    Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such who are in the institution wish to get out and such as are out wish to get in. Read more »

  • acotrel says:

    06:00am | 02/01/11

    You could easily fit Australia’s current population between Goulburn and Albury.  The phobia about ‘big Australia’ is townie bullshit! Read more »

 

Today there will be thousands of Australians losing an hour of time with their kids for the privilege of sitting in traffic gridlock in our major cities.  Somewhere else there will be an employer looking at a business, which could generate much more money if only a worker could be found.

Some people think we're already full.

The concept of Australia running at two speeds couldn’t be starker than it is with population.  One group of Australians are flying at high speed to work at a mine while others may as well put the handbrake on.

Developing a sustainable population strategy means finding a way forward for both groups.  So far a lot of the debate has dealt with national population figures and presumed all we need to do is arrive at a total number.

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  • Lin says:

    06:24pm | 20/04/10

    Tony (or one of the ‘advisers’): You say: “The critical difference is all deaths are subtracted from the birth rate – as though people who come from interstate or overseas don’t die.  That’s why the quarterly report quoted has figures which seem to inflate the impact of immigration and reduce… Read more »

  • Dave says:

    02:22pm | 20/04/10

    You better be careful Andrew, not everyone likes it when you tell it like it is. Read more »

 

There are plenty of vast, empty spaces on this continent and many Australians The Punch spoke to last week would like to see them filled.

With facilities like this migrants would flock here wouldn't they?

In a survey The Punch ran testing Australians’ thoughts on population growth, the majority of respondents were open to the idea of building a new major city somewhere on the continent to relieve population pressure on other cities.

They were resolute about its ideal location: anywhere but near Sydney and Melbourne. John, 20, from Cronulla agreed with many survey respondents that Australia’s next Canberra, if built, should go somewhere on the country’s Western coast: “It should be somewhere between Perth and Broome.”

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  • wendy says:

    02:36pm | 20/04/10

    Plenty of population growth would accur when we create many channels allowing the deep blue sea to find its own level inland and then build many new ports and towns on the new inland sea areas all around the vast desert coastal regions not in use as yet and build… Read more »

  • sam says:

    12:26am | 20/04/10

    “Bad things happen when cities are built in deserts. In science fiction movies they’re usually taken over by robots.” I like the sound of Camilla, 20, from Rockdale. She sounds like my sort of girl. Read more »

 

Tony Abbott’s incendiary comments about immigration could ignite an Australia Day tinderbox.

An ever-vigilant Abbott scans the horizon for queue-jumpers.

Speaking last week at an Australia Day Council dinner, the federal opposition leader used language reminiscent of the darkest days of the Howard regime.

‘‘The inescapable minimum that we insist upon is obedience to the law,’’ he said.

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  • Fozyhooni says:

    08:24am | 16/05/12

    “Bisher haben die eine besondere Zahlen Regel   nicht nur , um Ihnen zu helfen dent JP Morgan in der Bilanz noch ihre adäquate Kapitalausstattung vorweisen viel wenn man es braucht , noch die Fähigkeit zu Wenn Sie möchten, , ” Wie das Veröffentlichung sagte wohnen in es ist “Lex”-Spalte… Read more »

  • Imishreem says:

    07:50am | 16/05/12

    “You’ve got a particular board of the fact that was regarded as making a single decision as to $100-million-plus, whereas upon least two of this members were potentially influenced caused by things really enjoy Vegas trips, a nice Prince concert and then massages,” Peter Chan, another SEC official who works… Read more »

 

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