Big Australia growth model a Ponzi-like con
The battle lines for Big Australia have been drawn. It represents a divide perhaps not seen since the conscription referendum of World War I. The Australian Financial Review continues to do its bit (‘‘Full recovery needs a bolder plan for a bigger Australia’’ , January 5) on behalf of the perpetual growthers by spruiking a future of ever more people consuming ever more.
Unlike the conscription referendum of 1917, however, the results of which were line-ball , the popular divide on Big Australia is very one-sided. Australians do not want it and have been telling us that in poll after poll. Despite attempts to debunk the comparison, the immigration-fed economic growth model is the greatest Ponzi-like con perpetrated on the Australian people. It serves a few and does little for the many and guarantees a never-ending diminution of our natural spaces and the liveability of the built environment. For these reasons alone, it must, in the end, come crashing down.
But how do the Australian voters demonstrate their concern? Where is the political alternative to LNP madness? What will it take for Labor to grasp that if they offer us something genuinely sustainable (and that would be immigration rates of 50,000 and not 200,000), they would win in a landslide?