by TheRealists
Professor Tim Flannery, 2007 Australian of the year and one of Australia’s best known scientists, has spoken out against both high immigration and the need for multiculturalism. Whilst Flannery’s views on Australia’s population are well known, it’s refreshing to hear a person that is held in such esteem also tackle the sensitive topic of multiculturalism. Professor Flannery made the comments whilst participating in a debate with the topic of Is Our Rate of Immigration Too High?
Flannery opened the debate for the affirmative, and was quick to pull out arguments that regular readers will be familiar with.
After some opening words he told the audience that business, government and the bureaucracy will all favour high immigration for differing reasons. He stated that just because these interest groups support high immigration, doesn’t mean it’s in the interest of ordinary Australians to pursue high population growth.
Later in the debate he said that Australians were the heaviest carbon users in the world, meaning that people that come to this country from almost anywhere in the world will result in an increase in global carbon emissions. He stated that our population growth made it much more difficult to fulfil our international obligations on greenhouse emissions. Flannery went on to say that we were engaged in high immigration “without a single consideration for these environmental issues”. In emphasising that point he noted how Ross Garnaut when reporting on Australia’s emissions trading scheme “just took our rate of population growth for granted, it wasn’t even questioned that we might vary it, and yet it’s clearly within our gift to vary it.”
Towards the end of his allotted time Flannery anticipated that his opponents would argue that high immigration “has been good for this country because its fostered multiculturalism and therefore a tolerance for human beings of many different kinds from around the planet.” Flannery rejected this argument, saying “That is truly an argument from the 80s or earlier.”
Expanding on this thought, Flannery said that “There was a time when travel was so limited, when trade and people’s experience of others overseas was so limited and where there was no Internet that we actually needed a program like that to foster mutual tolerance. Those days are well and truly gone.” He later said that “The argument that we need a massive immigration program to promote tolerance between people just has no, has no legs”
Flannery also talked about the ageing of the population, and noted that during the baby boom of the 50s people weren’t concerned about how we were going to care for all these helpless babies. Our society grew wealthier as time went by and we managed, just like we could with the ageing of the population. Referring to the idea that immigration is a solution to this population ageing, he expressed his concerns, saying “It doesn’t seem to have a natural end. Should we seek to grow our population forever to avoid the inevitable situation of an ageing population?”
Tim Flannery is a sometimes controversial figure. His outspoken persona has led him to make predictions regarding the environment that have not always eventuated. He’s also no stranger to controversy, and has even been quoted as saying that he supports sustainable whaling.
While there isn’t any senior politician willing to stand up and argue that our rate of immigration should be drastically cut it’s good to have people like Tim Flannery arguing the good cause, regardless of how unpopular or non PC it is.
source: The Realists
Rosina
I lot of people were very interested in what Ben Gurion, Hitler, Stalin, Trotsky, Mussolini, and Batista had to say. And I would fight for anyone’s right to listen to them, but if their’s are the policies they decide to support, then they become my enemy.
Clearly, Rosina, you have yet to find your way out of the drawing room and discover that ETS will cause misery and death for millions; if not billions. Resisting this, therefore, is by definition, war.
So will I be nasty to my enemies? You have no idea.
I suggest you read the David Archibald Report, plus the works of other Aussies like Ian Plimer, Bob Carter, Leon Ashby or Viv Forbes. Then get a calculator and project the impact of a 40% loss of a national bottom demographic cash flow on the Australian population, 54% of which have incomes below $15,000; not to mention the overlapping 23% who do not have a job that pays a livable wage.
But I guess you believe people like Kevin Rudd and his predecessor, John Howard, who claim we are living in an Era of Prosperity.
To tony ryan…there alot of people interested in what Tim Flannery thinks, why do you always have a be so nasty??
Gidday Jon Boy
I’d be happy to take you through Kakadu.
A few weeks ago I took two Americans through the north of Australia, Brizzy, Cooktown, Ayers Rock, Darwin and Kakadu. 18,000 Ks by air and MV, at $16,000 all went like clockwork. I ran safaris in Kakadu for 8 years, so you will get to see the best; what outsiders never see.
But if you do it camping it is much cheaper, and to my mind, more enjoyable. Kids need to be about 8 years old to fully enjoy it.
Tony
awesome, like alot of australians, have seen alot of the world but very little of the home land. kakadu would be sick to go, maybe in a few years when the little ones won’t get carried away by the flies i’ll be giving you a yell.
Gidday Jon Boy
I used to do surveys for the Commonwealth and NT Governments… Petrol Sniffing, underage drinking, Aboriginal Town camps, income maintenance, and so on. But by 1982 my work was being censored and key points of research being removed. I left the PS and after a bit of agriculture and rural land development got into tourism in Kakadu.
My market research got Chief Minister Marshal Peron onto the phony marketing of Satchi and Satchi and the NT Tourism Commission, which led to the Kennedy Report and the sacking of the entire NT Tourism Commission. Meanwhile our safaris, mine an my competiters, created Kakadu Tourism as the number 3 oz icon.
Globalisation stuffed tourism up, so I researched residential real restate and became a high profile consultant in NZ. Got back to Oz and researched for the Australian Independents Alliance,and now the Tariff Restoration Bloc and several other organisations.
Did a few books and papers in between.
your an anrgy man tony, but i like the way you think.
I’m thinking if the water’s start to rise and the weather patterns start changing, does this mean the centre of australia will fill up with water again. 🙂 may be time to get that lakeside house…..
the earth is a living machine, it’s power so fast that a little hiccup, could wipe out most life on this planet. not meaning that life will stop. the planet will cont’ on like it always done.
you quote alot of survey’s, what do you do……. ?
Who cares what Tim Flannery thinks.
He believes in the absurd AGW theory, and I mean theory, now completely disproved by former IPCC scientists. He still bumbles on about carbon footprints… hey! Wake up Flannery. CO2 is plant food. We need more not less.
Fact: The Jurassic period had five times more atmospheric CO2 than now, and it was the most prolific time for life, both flora and fauna, in the planet’s history.
Fact: In 1242 the Chinese Imperial Navy sailed the entire Arctic Ocean and, hey, no ice.
Fact: A century before this Eric the Red commenced his Danish colonisation of Greenland, so-called by Eric because of its vast green fields and no ice. Three centuries later the little ice age began and permafrost forced evacuation.
Fact: 13 centuries ago the English were growing grapes. Five centuries later, they were skating on the Thames every winter.
Conclusion: No AGW evident over that era. Climate change is normal. And it is already proved beyond all doubt that there is a time lag of CO2 build up 800 years AFTER warming… not vice versa.
So, plainly, Tim is really Dim Tim Flannery, and should be ignored for the shallow media slut that he is. Moreover, all “Australians of the Year” are media sluts, whose achievements have been puddle thin or of no consequence in the real world scheme of things.
The real Australians of note are the people who change our nation for the better; real achievement, and actions that make for healthier children, happier families, and a more prosperous nation.
There is only one overriding immigration and refugee issue and that is what all the ordinary Australians think. In a genuine democracy, that is all that matters.
Our surveys show that the Morgan and Gallop polls are propaganda machines and that 86% of Aussies oppose the policy of multiculturalism. So it must go, and to hell with what celebrities and politicians want.
rip into it Timmy. have to say I total agree. about most of the things Tim comes up with.
How good would it be to sit at the pub and have a quiet beer with that bloke…..