ACT candidates
The "election fever" gripping the ACT rendered comatose a large part of the 200 people gathered to hear election candidates on February 4.
Most of the independents aped the Labor and Liberal candidates, showing that they, too, would be "responsible" and maintain a "balanced budget" while being a little bit greener. Some made veiled references to "vested interests" who are stopping good green ideas.
But Labor and Liberal were the smooth professionals, invoking fiscal realism and watering down expectations.
Proceedings livened up when a local herpetologist, no doubt used to dealing with more honest and intelligent species than most of the assembled reptiles in suits, took the candidates to task for their lack of a green vision for the ACT's proposed new urban settlement (Gungahlin), one that would be based on alternatives to the car, where all buildings are required to be energy efficient and where all sewage and other waste is recycled, where ecological sustainability would be a living experiment and not a topic to be suffocated by political and bureaucratic inertia. "Too Late" and "too expensive" were some of the feeble responses.
The candidates' lame performance is a result of their commitment to an economic system which rests on promoting a "good business environment" which allegedly benefits everyone but winds up sacrificing the workers' and natural environments to the profits of the developers, real estate agents and the other wealthy in Canberra.
Only Lara Pullin, the DSP candidate, went to the heart of the matter, naming the "vested interests" as developers' profits, and pointedly asking Liberal and Labor why, with four years' experience in government in the ACT and decades elsewhere, they have nothing green to show for it. They both failed to respond to her challenge just as capitalism fails to respond to the needs of people and their environment.
Phil Shannon
Canberra
Immigration and environment
Peter Boyle tells us that research by the Bureau of Immigration Research shows that continuing high migration levels has economic benefits for Australia (GLW 22/1/92). He may as well have told us that research by the Business Council of Australia shows that capitalism benefits Australia.
The obvious truth is that if there are more people in a country, then there is more work to be done providing for them. However, labour is not the only ingredient used in supplying people's needs, natural resources are required as well. With more people, Australia's farms, forests, fishing grounds and mineral resources all have to be exploited more intensively in order to provide us all with a living.
Clearly, with more people we can expect life to become harder and our environment will deteriorate more rapidly. However, those at the top of the heap in our current society will find f a bigger heap as our population grows. This is why most business, and particularly, the real estate industry support continuing high migration levels. The left should not side with these businesspeople against the interests of workers in Australia (both Australian born and migrant).
Of course economics is not the only concern in the immigration debate. The main concern for many people is the ethical question of the responsibility of Australians to share our relatively good fortune with the less fortunate people around the world. However, appropriate foreign aid is in most circumstances an enormously more efficient way of contributing to a more equitable distribution of resources.
Those opposed to continuing high immigration have been labelled as racists. It would be equally valid to label all supporters of high immigration as apologists for the real estate industry. Racism is involved when those opposing immigration say not only "there are too many of 'them'" but also that there are not enough of 'us'". There is no racism involved in wanting to stop the population and economic growth that is destroying our continent and our planet.
These issues are more fully discussed in a pamphlet "Future Directions" by the group Australians for an Ecologically Sustainable Population, available to interested readers from me, free of charge on request.
David Kault
18 Stagpole St
West End, Townsville 4810