Australia and Migration

source :
http://www.news.com.au/national/mass-migration-kills-aussie-culture-says-demographer-bob-birrell/story-e6frfkvr-1225844560248

TRADITIONS based on heritage, sporting culture and common language are
threatened by mass immigration, a leading demographer has warned.

Monash University population expert Dr Bob Birrell has said the huge
influx of people with few or no English skills had created social
problems in Melbourne suburbs such as Dandenong, Sunshine and
Broadmeadows and most major cities were feeling the population strain,
the Herald Sun reported.

"This is not a pretty picture," he said. "Social divisions are
becoming more obvious and geographically concentrated and certain
areas are being overlain by an ethnic identification."

Dr Birrell made the explosive comments in an article for Policy, a
magazine published by the Centre for Independent Studies, a right-wing
think tank.

In a plea to the Rudd Government to slash the current immigrant intake
of 180,000 a year, Dr Birrell warned that the predicted population of
35 million by 2050 would be a disaster for urban living and the
environment.

"One would have to wander deaf, dumb and blind through Australian
capital cities to not notice how urban congestion has already reduced
the quality of life," he said.

The intake dominated by people from non-English speaking backgrounds
was transforming Australia, Dr Birrell said. (Click to see the
Immigration department's statistics on migration and where migrants
have come from.)

"We are losing core elements of what was once shared. Almost all could
once aspire to a house and land ... and sharing a common language,
sporting culture and heritage," he said.

But mass migration was creating ethnic enclaves in suburbs with cheap
housing, and planning rules were forcing Australian-born "losers" and
non-English speaking background migrants to live in congested
neighbourhoods, "cheek by jowl".

Population target

Kevin Rudd has made it clear that he believes in a big Australia. In a
recent speech he declared that migration was "good for our national
security, good for our long-term prosperity, good in enhancing our
role in the region and the world".

But the Federal Opposition and the Greens said questions needed to be
asked about Australia's immigration plans.

Opposition immigration spokesman, Scott Morrison, told the ABC there
should be an inquiry into how many people the nation can support.

"It's about what the carrying capacity is," he said. "We need to get
that perspective from regional areas as well as metropolitan areas,
where issues of congestion and housing affordability are major
problems as well as public transport.

"What's more important, is the process for planning. For example, the
states and territories have no input into questions of immigration and
migration intakes but they're the ones at the end of the day that have
to service the needs that are created by it."

Greens Leader Bob Brown said there should be an independent national
inquiry into Australia's population target.

"So that politicians do have an idea of the carrying capacity of this
country, its infrastructure, its ability to deal with those quite
worrying projections of 35 million people by 2050," he said. "We've
got to do better than just say well let it happen."

Other leading academics have also questioned the challenge that mass
intake of migrants will pose.

In their book Australia's Immigration Revolution, Andrew Markus, James
Jupp and Peter McDonald agrue that while immigration "offers 'the most
immediate and simplest short term measure to deal with labour and
skills shortages" it also comes with serious questions about social
cohesion.

Prior to the 1950s 80 per cent of immigrants came from the United
Kingdom. Between the 50s and the 1960s migrants from continental
Europe became the majority.

After the abolition of the White Australia policy in the early 1970s
the mixture of migration changed again. Today, the largest proportion
of immigrants come from Asia and Oceania. China and India rival New
Zealand and Britian as the biggest source of immigrants.