Muz said:

By the way Japan's population, despite returning diaspora, is shrinking to the point where entire towns, communities, schools and facilities have closed down. Particularly in rural areas.

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During the gold rush in Victoria a myriad of towns sprang up and these were recorded in the maps of the time. Travel there today and there is nothing: no buildings, no infrastructure, nothing. Others are reduced to a handful of people. In you ever travel to north WA make a detour to Onslow, once a thriving pearl town with heaps of Japanese who came here in the 1800s for pearls - they are buried in the Japanese cemetery.
There is nothing in the constitution nor on any religious text demanding that all towns or cities survive till the end of time.
Can I recommend the book by Edward Glaeser "The triumph of the city" describing how throughout history small towns' population get attracted to live in cities and what that means economically.

Muz said:

It's not my fault you can't math. You said 60 million people returning would solve a 750 million person deficit.

60 million won't put a dent in it.

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For someone who slags off America routinely you just used an American term. It's maths not math in Australia.

No matter what I put forward you've always got something negative to say about it.

I get it, life must really suck for you that you make yourself feel better by being a cyberbully online.

Muz said:

'Free' in inverted commas. They've never had a change of government since their independence. Out of their 99 seat Parliament there's 10 opposition members. 2 are state mandated.

The rank coercion the government engages in when elections are on would blow your mind.

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No different to parts of Australia then. Victoria have had the same government for most of the 21st century (bar a breif period at the end of the 2000's & early 2010's), South Australia have largely had the same government for all of the 21st century (bar one term in 2018 to 2022).

JS96 said:

Then there's the wishful thinking of importing millions of people who can't read and write from archaic cultures in regards to women and life to become rocket scientists. Germany has some of the dumbest policies out there. A very generous welfare state that has weakened immensely in arranging or even forcing people to get up and get working. Interestingly the migrant birth rate in Europe is so high yet the social and education problems persist.

All of the nations have stuffed up by not providing better support and policies for organic growth. Skilled and vetted migration along with a positive local birth rate is the way to go.

Many countries have flicked the panic button and rushed people in for a numbers game but not thought about the social and financial consequences.

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Germany's financial malaise begun with re-unification between East & West Germany. West Germany pumped in $B into East Germany as well as the new governments in Central Europe which sapped their finances but they would have been OK. Then came along the Arab Spring & invasions of Afghanistan & Iraq which created a massive flow migrants. Chancellor Merkel, being the daughter of Lutheran pastor and having grown up in communist East Germany, did a captain's pick and opened the borders - her political party were caught by surprise as was everyone else. The rest is history. Oh, and I forgot about the GFC (Deutchsbank was on watch as it teetered), the collapse of Greece and the PIGS, and Covid-19.

If you live in a country like Australia, no government policy will engender population growth unless you have coercion. China had the one child policy that was brutally enforced and it worked however there were still families with multiple children. The biggest social change has been the invention of birth control pills, the support governments provide for the aged, the rising cost of having children, and the look ahead for children's future. Birth control pills enabled women (and men) to be able to plan when to have children and how many although I do note that men are now having vasectomies with no shame attached - something unheard of when I was a kid. Government provided aged care means that people don't have to have so many kids to look after them when you get old - note that in Singapore (and Greece I believe) by law children have to look after their parents with governments only providing to those that do not have children. The cost of raising a child continues to increase with more and more parents choosing private schools so that becomes a factor as well. Finally, responsible parents tend to look at the way their kids will earn a living which means more money and effort is dedicated to one or two kids rather than three or four.

All of this against a background of we want tax cuts!

When it comes to immigration I'm probably more of a higher growth advocate than most. For Australia I think around 250-300K net or around 1-1.25% per year.

I think Canada has been working on that percentage so Australia should be able to match its cousins in North America....

Of course it's quite an aggressive number and many will say that it's too high and I get this but for a lot of the reasons Muz has cited I think it's where you have to be.

And to be honest I think most Australians see clear benefits that immigration brings, even as they sometimes remain divided about various immigration levels and what is a sustainable level of population growth. So I think more research and information is needed to understand the specific hesitations and concerns they are perhaps expressing. Also this is a story that needs to be told better by our politicians

Muz said:

Don't play the victim card champ. You've called me scum, a socialist, a communist, and other names, accused me of treasonous behaviour and told me to fuck off out of Australia multiple times.

Can't do all that and then have a little sook when things don't go your way.

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ROFL, so the bully can't handle getting a taste of his own medicine huh.

Well nothing I've said isn't wide of the mark at all.

You've admitted you are a socialist and you condone treasonous behaviour like burning the national flag so if the shoe fits.

Football us life said:

When it comes to immigration I'm probably more of a higher growth advocate than most. For Australia I think around 250-300K net or around 1-1.25% per year.

I think Canada has been working on that percentage so Australia should be able to match its cousins in North America....

Of course it's quite an aggressive number and many will say that it's too high and I get this but for a lot of the reasons Muz has cited I think it's where you have to be.

And to be honest I think most Australians see clear benefits that immigration brings, even as they sometimes remain divided about various immigration levels and what is a sustainable level of population growth. So I think more research and information is needed to understand the specific hesitations and concerns they are perhaps expressing. Also this is a story that needs to be told better by our politicians

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I think most Australians are comfortable with immigration but the conversation that needs to be had that has been buried due to people being howled down as racist for it is the fact we need to be far more choosy when it comes to the subject.

Simple fact of the matter is bring in immigrants is fine but they have to integrate into Australian society.

It's become plain and obvious the past 30+ years that quite a lot of new immigrants have absolutely no interest in integrating into Australian society.

I thi

Sharkman84 said:

I think most Australians are comfortable with immigration but the conversation that needs to be had that has been buried due to people being howled down as racist for it is the fact we need to be far more choosy when it comes to the subject.

Simple fact of the matter is bring in immigrants is fine but they have to integrate into Australian society.

It's become plain and obvious the past 30+ years that quite a lot of new immigrants have absolutely no interest in integrating into Australian society.

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I think you're going to find immigrant communities in every Western country who don’t fully integrate into their new country.

Britain, France and Belgium are 3 that come to mind. For example in parts of Northern England and the Midlands there are towns such as Leicester, Bradford and Blackburn a huge proportion of immigrants have limited to no English proficiency....

In the outer suburbs of big cities like Paris, Brussels and so on it's a similar situation. Obviously there's French and Flemish but you get my drift.

Cultural and religious values are often not particularly well assimilated either.

It's just the downside to having a great need for migrants I'm afraid. It's never going to be a perfect science unfortunately.

But the vast majority of immigrants do assimilate very well. When I was a kid in the UK an Iranian family moved into our street after they came to Britain after the Islamic Revolution in their home country.

They parents and two boys around my age and two girls who were older. They integrated really well and became valued members of the community. According to my mother who was friendly with the family's mother, the kids all went on to university and got good careers. Doctors, engineers and that kind of thing.

Immigration works very well for most of the time.

Football us life said:

I thi

I think you're going to find immigrant communities in every Western country who don’t fully integrate into their new country.

Britain, France and Belgium are 3 that come to mind. For example in parts of Northern England and the Midlands there are towns such as Leicester, Bradford and Blackburn a huge proportion of immigrants have limited to no English proficiency....

In the outer suburbs of big cities like Paris, Brussels and so on it's a similar situation. Obviously there's French and Flemish but you get my drift.

Cultural and religious values are often not particularly well assimilated either.

It's just the downside to having a great need for migrants I'm afraid. It's never going to be a perfect science unfortunately.

But the vast majority of immigrants do assimilate very well. When I was a kid in the UK an Iranian family moved into our street after they came to Britain after the Islamic Revolution in their home country.

They parents and two boys around my age and two girls who were older. They integrated really well and became valued members of the community. According to my mother who was friendly with the family's mother, the kids all went on to university and got good careers. Doctors, engineers and that kind of thing.

Immigration works very well for most of the time.

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That's what I was getting at.

Western governments have to be more choosy.

Bringing in people from countries who are incompatible and won't integrate with Western society is ludicrous.

Sharkman84 said:

That's what I was getting at.

Western governments have to be more choosy.

Bringing in people from countries who are incompatible and won't integrate with Western society is ludicrous.

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Bu it is not a perfect science. So, like anything you have to have to take the rough with the smooth....

I think Australia has got it mostly right.

Muz said:

3 things.

Agree the government doesn't talk enough about the benefits of immigration. Successive governments have been terrible at it. The coalition are worse because they love dog whistling about migrants while only paying mealy mouthed lip service to the benefits even though they are pro immigration.

2nd thing. It makes no difference how many people we import because we are just kicking the can down the road. A can we'll eventually have to do something with.

3rd. People act as if we are overwhelmed with choice as to who actually wants to come to Australia. The underlying groupthink by people to scared to say it is they want people to come here that are 'like us'. Well guess what, there aren't hundreds of thousands of white Europeans trying to immigrate to Australia. We take, in large part, those people who want to come here.

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Muz said:

One more thing. You can't bring in that many people if you can't house them. Because even at current rates supply is not keeping up with demand hence the current situation where homes are out of reach of the average Australian.

So that needs to be sorted first. And, despite the government saying they'll increase housing, they're missing all their targets. And not just by a little bit.

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I agree with you somewhat on all of this. It's going to take a far more cleverer person than me to come up with a workable strategy on how to perfect immigration....

In he meantime countries such as Australia have to try and find a workable ongoing way of doing things...