[WaveRider]

Hi all,

I received a small piece of paper in my letterbox the other day which was odd, it read:


"600,000 immigrants arrived in the last 4 years.

That's more than Tasmania.
More than the Aborigines.
More than Newcastle.
More than meets the eye?"


It had a small bar graph which was growing exponentially from left to right. The paper was about 10cm x 5cm and it looked as though someone had printed off a bunch of them on A4 paper and chopped them up roughly, then hit the streets to fill the local letterboxes....

It arrived late last week after Australia Day when I was on holidays.

Has anyone else received anything like this?

There is no identification on the piece of paper for any groups?

I'm wondering who would print this and distribute it? What are their goals?

[crashe]

The local racist hired an immigrant for $4 an hour to do some letterbox dropping. lol

Immigration concern is certainly receiving a lot of press lately.

[WaveRider]

Lol...

Yeah I was thinking it could be a local racist nutter - wasn't sure though...

It really stuck in my mind though - mostly because of my interest in the property market - and potential effects of immigration on prices...

[Sacamento]

Well maybe if this country put in decent infrastructure and didn't have such a corrupt housing industry these "racists" wouldn't be so "racist".

[WaveRider]

Funny thing is, you would be hard pressed to find a recent immigrant at all in my suburb, except for the ones manning my local coles or servo....

I'm living in Neutral Bay in Sydney which is full of wealthy types, well, it's full of wealthy mansion homes, with a smattering of tacky 60's and 70's style unit blocks which scumbag renters like me live in.

[tor]

I always wonder what the "no immigration" people plan to do to pay for the retiring people.

If we stopped the kiwis[1] coming here and paying taxes we would run into a big problem pretty soon.

Well we are running into a big problem anyway but it would come sooner.

[1] From memory kiwis are the biggest number of immigrants. I think there is like half a million of us here.

[tor]

WaveRider, on 04 February 2010 - 04:49 AM, said:

Funny thing is, you would be hard pressed to find a recent immigrant at all in my suburb, except for the ones manning my local coles or servo....

I'm living in Neutral Bay in Sydney which is full of wealthy types, well, it's full of wealthy mansion homes, with a smattering of tacky 60's and 70's style unit blocks which scumbag renters like me live in.

You're kidding me. You don't think there are any South Africans / Kiwis or Brits in Neutral Bay? Pull the other one.

When I was doing my painters apprenticeship we did mostly neutral bay / mosman areas. Ahhh the eighties and rag wash. They were all immigrants. All the aussies were N Shore.

[Silver Surfer]

tor, on 04 February 2010 - 05:13 AM, said:

You're kidding me. You don't think there are any South Africans / Kiwis or Brits in Neutral Bay? Pull the other one.

When I was doing my painters apprenticeship we did mostly neutral bay / mosman areas. Ahhh the eighties and rag wash. They were all immigrants. All the aussies were N Shore.

The bulk of South Africans are in Perth. I have one working for me. Nice lady, if a little brittle at times.

"Another more recent wave of arrivals include European minorities from Southern Africa. The South Africa–born overtook those born in Italy to become the fourth largest birthplace group after 2001. By 2006, there were 18,825 South Africa–born in Perth, accounting for 1.3% of the city's people.^[38] Many Afrikaners and Anglo-Africans from South Africa and Zimbabwe emigrated to Perth during the 1980s and 1990s, with the phrase "Packing for Perth" becoming associated with South Africans who choose to emigrate abroad, sometimes regardless of the destination.^[40] As a result, the city has been described as "the Australian capital of South Africans in exile".^[41] The reason for Perth being so popular among white South Africans has often been the location (closer to Africa than other large cities), the vast amount of expansion and space, and the slightly warmer climate compared to other large Australian cities."

From http://en.wikipedia....a#Ethnic_groups

[WaveRider]

Yeah I guess it was stupid to generalise and suggest there was not many recent immigrants in Neutral Bay - there's probably crap loads. The place just feels so damn white compared to anywhere else i've lived. Anyway...

I was having a look at wiki and Australian Immigration:

http://en.wikipedia....ian_immigration

Some interesting things:

Yes tor, there's 476K Kiwi's...

And....

"Housing
A number of economists, such as Macquarie Bank analyst Rory Robertson, assert that high immigration and the propensity of new arrivals to cluster in the capital cities is exacerbating the nation's housing affordability problem. According to Robertson, Federal Government policies that fuel demand for housing, such as the currently high levels of immigration, as well as capital gains tax discounts and subsidies to boost fertility, have had a greater impact on housing affordability than land release on urban fringes.[30] However, the Productivity Commission does not accept "population pressures" as a major driver of strong increases in house prices, stating that "increased demand for better quality and better located dwellings, rather than for more dwellings, has been the primary driver""

And....
"
Gittins claims there is considerable opposition to immigration in Australia by "battlers" because of the belief that immigrants will steal jobs. Gittins claims though that "it's true that immigrants add to the supply of labour. But it's equally true that, by consuming and bringing families who consume, they also add to the demand for labour - usually by more.""


So what do you think someone, or some group, would have the motivation to spread this message? What is their message?

This post has been edited by WaveRider: 04 February 2010 - 06:06 AM

[tom]

Sacamento, on 04 February 2010 - 04:31 AM, said:

Well maybe if this country put in decent infrastructure and didn't have such a corrupt housing industry these "racists" wouldn't be so "racist".

+1

[tor]

tom, on 04 February 2010 - 06:08 AM, said:

+1

Please elaborate on that tom. Are you saying Immigrants use the infrastructure creating too much stress on it and you would prefer they didn't come? or are you saying that racists are easy to trick into caring about the wrong things (immigration) rather than the real problem (governments not providing infrastructure)?

[tor]

Sacamento, on 04 February 2010 - 04:31 AM, said:

Well maybe if this country put in decent infrastructure and didn't have such a corrupt housing industry these "racists" wouldn't be so "racist".

Are you saying that the immigrants should have created the infrastructure and instead are the ringleaders of the corrupt housing industry? Or are you saying the racists don't know how to targe tthe actual cause of the problem (the corrupt australians and ineffectual politicians) and so choose a target at random to be angry at instead?

I fail to see how stopping the kiwis coming will stop the purported corruption of the mirvacs and meritons. Maybe the brits and the south africans have a tradition of being into politics but suck at it?

Possible I guess.

[Sacamento]

tor, on 04 February 2010 - 06:25 AM, said:

Are you saying that the immigrants should have created the infrastructure and instead are the ringleaders of the corrupt housing industry? Or are you saying the racists don't know how to targe tthe actual cause of the problem (the corrupt australians and ineffectual politicians) and so choose a target at random to be angry at instead?

I fail to see how stopping the kiwis coming will stop the purported corruption of the mirvacs and meritons. Maybe the brits and the south africans have a tradition of being into politics but suck at it?

Possible I guess.

Well you can't really expect everyone to be so knowledgable about the real problem. You have to dig pretty deep to get it. If a person was completely ignorant they'd have to spend a lot of time digging around this site and creditcrunch.co.uk. It's something the MSM keeps well hidden.

And besides. It's simply a person's right to not want a big Australia. Freedom of speech and all that.

[tor]

Sacamento, on 04 February 2010 - 07:03 AM, said:

Well you can't really expect everyone to be so knowledgable about the real problem. You have to dig pretty deep to get it. If a person was completely ignorant they'd have to spend a lot of time digging around this site and creditcrunch.co.uk. It's something the MSM keeps well hidden.

And besides. It's simply a person's right to not want a big Australia. Freedom of speech and all that.

You don't have to dig deep. A couple of minutes thinking and it is pretty obvious.

I think if people don't know the real cause of the problem they should have it pointed out to them just how stupid they look.

And whilst I agree with freedom of speech it goes both ways, if someone has been lead by the nose into an obviously retarded outlook on reality by someone trying to take advantage of them and they are allowed to speak then I am allowed to point out their docile behaviour.

The best thing is that these are usually the self same people that call me a member of the sheeple.

With one question I can tear most of the anti immigration arguments to shreds. Doesn't speak well of the anti immigration argument. You'd think such passionate people would actually put a tiny amount of effort into their beliefs.

If the people claiming these things are so obviously short sighted I am not sure we should move society even close to anything they support, probably a good bet to do the opposite.

[Sacamento]

tor, on 04 February 2010 - 08:06 AM, said:

You don't have to dig deep. A couple of minutes thinking and it is pretty obvious.

I think if people don't know the real cause of the problem they should have it pointed out to them just how stupid they look.

And whilst I agree with freedom of speech it goes both ways, if someone has been lead by the nose into an obviously retarded outlook on reality by someone trying to take advantage of them and they are allowed to speak then I am allowed to point out their docile behaviour.

The best thing is that these are usually the self same people that call me a member of the sheeple.

With one question I can tear most of the anti immigration arguments to shreds. Doesn't speak well of the anti immigration argument. You'd think such passionate people would actually put a tiny amount of effort into their beliefs.

If the people claiming these things are so obviously short sighted I am not sure we should move society even close to anything they support, probably a good bet to do the opposite.

I think your main argument for immigration was to pay for old people which is fair enough. But that doesn't take into account where or how all the money is spent. I also read a smh article recently saying that the ratio of old to young at the moment was 1-5 or so but would be almost 50-50 in the future there by clearly pushing the problem into the future so that the boomers win again. I should have bookmarked that.

[tor]

Sacamento, on 04 February 2010 - 09:20 AM, said:

I think your main argument for immigration was to pay for old people which is fair enough. But that doesn't take into account where or how all the money is spent. I also read a smh article recently saying that the ratio of old to young at the moment was 1-5 or so but would be almost 50-50 in the future there by clearly pushing the problem into the future so that the boomers win again. I should have bookmarked that.

I think you are thinking of the retired to tax payer ratio. Currently about 1 retired per 5 tax pater. Projections I saw recently put it at 1:2.5 in the nearish future.

A significant problem. Not just for the oldies.

[Bernard L. Madoff]

Sacamento, on 04 February 2010 - 04:31 AM, said:

Well maybe if this country put in decent infrastructure and didn't have such a corrupt housing industry these "racists" wouldn't be so "racist".

Tom may +1 you but I took it back.

Most of the racist scum are just that - scum.

Our main immigration source are poms. You Hansonites don't rubbish the Anglo Saxon immigrants do you?

Quote

The United Kingdom remains Australia’s largest source of migrants with an outcome of
30,590 or 17.9 per cent of the total Migration Program (up from 28,029 in 2007-08). This is a
significant reduction from 21.2 per cent of the program in 2006-07 and 22.5 per cent in 2005-
06. Diagram C shows the top 10 citizenships, excluding New Zealand citizens (New Zealand
citizens are not counted as part of the Migration Program).

Quote

At 30 June 2009, the Migration Program outcome was 171,318. This is 0.3 per cent below
the planning level.

http://www.immi.gov....ram-2008-09.pdf

Quote

In the 2008-09 financial year, 47 782 New Zealand citizens came to Australia as permanent and long-term arrivals. This represented an increase of 2.9 percent on the previous year. 33 000 arrived as permanent settlers, and 14 750 were long-term arrivals. This represented a 4.3 percent decrease on the previous year for permanent and a 0.3 percent increase on the previous year for long–term arrivals.

http://www.immi.gov....sheets/17nz.htm

The whole stop migration because its bad economics is just a veil for xenophobia.

The nationalist scum wouldn't utter a peep if immigration doubled and all the immigrants were white caucasions.

If it walks like a duck, quacks and...

[Silver Surfer]

Tinpusher, on 04 February 2010 - 10:44 AM, said:

Tom may +1 you but I took it back.

Most of the racist scum are just that - scum.

Our main immigration source are poms. You Hansonites don't rubbish the Anglo Saxon immigrants do you?




http://www.immi.gov....ram-2008-09.pdf


http://www.immi.gov....sheets/17nz.htm

The whole stop migration because its bad economics is just a veil for xenophobia.

The nationalist scum wouldn't utter a peep if immigration doubled and all the immigrants were white caucasions.

If it walks like a duck, quacks and...

Perfectly stated.

[sydney3000]

Sacamento, on 04 February 2010 - 04:31 AM, said:

Well maybe if this country put in decent infrastructure and didn't have such a corrupt housing industry these "racists" wouldn't be so "racist".

I agree as well. I think it is fair game to use the rising racism to get a change in the immigration policy implemented that in turn reduces the load on the resources.

The following happened to me yesterday:

A freight train breaks down in Cheltenham. A bunch of people are stuck at North Ryde without trains. I lead the pack of two women to the staff manning the station and ask if we can have the infamous taxi vouchers to get ourselves where we need to go. We ponder the failure of NSW while the staff calls head office. One woman asks me: "Where are you from?" I say: "I am from here." The woman asks: "Where are you originally from?" I say: "From Germany." We didn't get vouchers.

The woman wasn't being racist but it shows that people's perception are still tied to a person's accent even if that person has lived for more than a decade in English-speaking countries.

This post has been edited by sydney3000: 04 February 2010 - 09:11 PM

[tor]

sydney3000, on 04 February 2010 - 09:10 PM, said:

I agree as well. I think it is fair game to use the rising racism to get a change in the immigration policy implemented that in turn reduces the load on the resources.

The following happened to me yesterday:

A freight train breaks down in Cheltenham. A bunch of people are stuck at North Ryde without trains. I lead the pack of two women to the staff manning the station and ask if we can have the infamous taxi vouchers to get ourselves where we need to go. We ponder the failure of NSW while the staff calls head office. One woman asks me: "Where are you from?" I say: "I am from here." The woman asks: "Where are you originally from?" I say: "From Germany." We didn't get vouchers.

The woman wasn't being racist but it shows that people's perception are still tied to a person's accent even if that person has lived for more than a decade in English-speaking countries.

You think increasing racism is a good thing because it might reduce immigration rather than having a serious discussion about immigration? That is how I read your first statement.

I don't think encouraging people to act and think stupidly is a particularly efficient way of solving problems.