Alliance?
I and others (including Janet Powell who recently resigned from the Australian Democrats to be free to further the advancement of such a strong third force) have discussed the matter of a Green-Socialist-Democrat Alliance before. I believe that each part of the whole can never alone gain more than two to six sets in the lower house, or not likely even to do better than the Democrats' seven to nine members in the Senate. Why?
1. The wealth, corrupted wealth, the old wealth, including the media, support the 2-party system.
2. The Labor left will remain a prisoner of the right in the corrupted Labor Party and Government. Give the best of them a ministerial salary and dreams of being "left" seem to either fade away or are lost in the "unanimous" Westminster decisions. But an Alliance of the third force would attract many of the sincere members.
3. Greens like the Illawarra Greens appear to be afraid of socialist thoughts, like understanding the world of "American interests", and thus appear to support the right of Labor.
4. A majority of Young Labor has turned to the right — where they think the money is?
A pre-selection panel comprising two or more from each group could surely approve the best candidates available for each electorate and all booths would be manned by supportive, determined members.
John Clancy
Sunderland NSW
Immigration
It is paradoxical that the far right and left both call for immigration to continue; the first for reasons of consumer expansionism and the second for the right of Third World emigrants to enjoy the very lifestyle, economy and politics the left condemns (probably rightly) as responsible for the plight of the Third World.
Currently in Australia we have a population of approximately 18,000,000 people who consumer, on average, about 30 times the amount of resources of an average Third World citizen. This means that we are carrying, mostly on our coastal fringe, a population in Australia equivalent to 540 million Third World citizens, almost the entire population of the African continent.
Every emigrant that comes here (or to Canada, USA, New Zealand — the only other OECD countries with pro-immigration policies) no matter what their former lifestyle, will quickly assume a lifestyle with the environmental impact of 30 Third World citizens.
Few in this country currently have much choice about the amount of energy and resources they consume. Merely to earn a living, Western style, we are obliged to use far more energy and resources zen just for transport (even public transport), clothing, bathing, cooking. The zoning and sanitation requirements for high-density living and working cannot be met without high energy/resource consumption. Our current food production system is actually extremely efficient — and needs to be.
Any attempts to return to a traditional agrarian society, even using high technology as advocated by Populationists (not very feasible with small family farm plots) would run into logistical difficulties due to lack of space even now and would become impossible with higher population. Ideas about expanding into the mountains or greening the desert, apart from requiring deployment of vast amounts of pollution engendering energy and resource depletion in laying down new infrastructure, are ecologically vandalistic. Deserts and mountains are not unoccupied except by humans; plenty of other species, both vegetable and animal, already live in them. There are very few refuges left for other species; This is the great "selfishness" of the human race.
A return to a hunter-gatherer society would require more territory per human and could not be achieved without a great reduction in population.
In fact, a high electronic, low energy technology society is probably the way to go, with low population and higher personal and local community involvement in food and staple production to supplement a smaller centralised food and staples production and distribution system.
Unless we attend to these problems now we will soon be in no position to continue grandly pitying the Third World, for we will have become a part of it.
S.M. Newman
Victorian president
Australians for an Ecologically Sustainable Population
Refugees
What a load of garbage is being spewed forth on these pages on the so-called "immigration debate" and the "racist remarks".
Some on the left seem to think that disguising the debate with bashing the third world is what it's all about.
Refugees ain't the problem. The majority of people into Australia appear to be "brain drain" and extended family — both of which I vehemently oppose. Neither have any rights to enter Australia. The former come for greed (and to exploit their own countries) and the latter are a waste of taxpayers money (welfare, education et al).
Personally I'd welcome an increase of 2 or 3 times the number of "genuine" refugees — not the tens of thousands of pseudo refugees from China, allowed in on the whim of some disgraced Prime Minister.
I'd also recommend an edict by the UN/Australian government making the having of more than two children a crime against humanity. to think the world population is going to grow to a certain level and flatten out — how or why seems to have completely escaped them — perhaps if some comet wipes out half the population or we all go sterile.
I suppose when Sydney's got another 5 or 6 harbour tunnels some of those on the thick left may wake up — too late, but they may wake up.
Countries like Australia and the US don't have these immigration influxes for humane reasons, but to exploit economies of scale, and it doesn't behove sections of the left to be part of their scheme.
Robert Wood
Surry Hills NSW
Population equation
The relevance of population to environmental issues is summed up by the indisputable logic embodied in one equation: I = P*A*T. The impact (I) on the environment is the product of the number of people (P) times their average level of material consumption (A for affluence) times the environmental cost per unit production inherent in the technology (T) employed to provide for this consumption.
Of course, this one equation is not enough to explain the state of the world. It says nothing about whether total consumption is fairly shared. It says nothing about who determines whether or not less environmentally destructive technologies are used. It says nothing about the extent to which environmental impacts are imported or exported across national boundaries. It does not make it obvious that the definition of the unit cost of society's technology, T, has to be broad enough to encompass material wasted on the military. It doesn't tell us which social mechanisms for limiting the growth of P are ethical or efficient.
The capitalist social system, driven by greed and self-interest, is clearly responsible for vast inequities with mass poverty and starvation coexisting with obscene conspicuous consumption. This system is also responsible for the non use of environmentally friendlier technologies and for much wastage and destruction from military conflict.
However, none of this alters the fact that P remains a factor in the important equation I = P*A*T. Denying this logic because it may distract attention away from the evil doings of capitalism is much worse than futile. It tends to discredit socialist ideas in the minds of all people who appreciate logic.
David Kault
Townsville