Australia is often spoken of as though it was a vast empty land. just waiting to be populated. In fact, most of our country is arid and settlement is concentrated on the fertile coastal strips. Immigration overwhelmingly impacts in the large cities particularly Sydney and Melbourne and attempts to decentralise the intake historically have been failures. This means that in considering immigration we have to consider the impact on the areas where immigrants actually settle and the capacity of those areas to cope. When that is done, the illusion of a vast land waiting to be populated dissolves.

Apart from environmental considerations there is clear evidence that the massive immigration intake of recent years has driven us further into debt. Most economists now agree that immigration exacerbates our current account deficit, Australia's most pressing economic problem.

The recent cut in the immigration intake announced by Mr Hand is a step in the right direction, but should not induce complacency. There are signs that both parties intend to increase immigration in the longer term and there will be enormous pressures placed on them to do so, both from the publicly funded immigration/multiculturalist industry group and big business interests.

The former rely on continuing injections of immigration to justify their existence and must be confronted if immigration is to be brought under control. The latter - particularly property developers - along with the real estate industry, want more immigrants because more people mean more development, regardless of the best interests of the country.

Also, immigration is a way of adding to an already underemployed labour pool and so placing a downward pressure on wages and working conditions. Those big business interests, bureaucrats and economists who claim that freer trade should be followed by free movement of labour between nations, do so because they realise the effect this would have in undermining local wages, so reducing production costs and increasing profit margins. Already in Asia there are large-scale labour migration schemes run by wealthy elites. The labourers in these schemes work for very low wages. It is clear that "free movement of labour" would mean Australian workers would be competing against modern day indentured labourers.

Immigration is not just a problem for Australia. Worldwide it will be one of the big issues of the 1990's.

throughout this paper, criticisms are made of the so-called ethnic leaders, but I want to make it clear that I do not think they represent the people they claim to represent, the vast majority of whom want what is best for Australia.

Finally, I would like to thank Mark Uhlmann for the work he has put into this paper.

After his election as Prime Minister in 1983, Bob Hawke stressed that his aim was to achieve a consensus in Australian society. A woolly concept at the best of times, it came to mean that reaching a uniformity of opinion in public issues, or maintaining an illusion of uniformity was promoted as the overriding virtue.

To initiate debate which threatened consensus, or caused a section of the population pain. was to be divisive a term of abuse which implied that the person was not only insensitive but wilfully destructive.

The participation of the general public was not called for in the achievement of a consensus. The consensus could be reached by various groups afforded elite status and then handed down from on high. If the general public showed signs of not living up to the high standard of consensus that was set for it, then something was wrong with the general public. It would have to be attacked for its ignorance and be educated to think correctly.

Snugly wrapped at the heart of consensus were two interrelated issues which came to be afforded that status of sanctity: immigration and multiculturalism. The latter policy was foreshadowed by Mr Al Grassby, Immigration Minister in the Whitlam Government.

As Dr Katharine Betts, the author of "Ideology and Immigration" [Melbourne University Press] has pointed out, the policy of multiculturalism was subsequently embraced by the Fraser Government. It was felt among senior Liberals that the party had failed to court the ~migrant" or ethnic" vote and that the Labor Party had been much more effective.

The Fraser Government's first Immigration Minister, Michael MacKellar, oversaw the re-establishment of the Immigration Department, which, in 1974, had been downgraded to the Department of Labour and Immigration under the Whitlam Government. A strong connection was established between immigration and ethnic affairs, which was reflected in the title of the new department - the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs. As part of this overhaul, Mr MacKellar began a strategy to woo the so-called ethnic vote.

The Fraser Government believed that by appealing to, and helping to establish so-called ethnic leaders, these leaders would deliver ethnic voting blocs to its cause. But the hoped for delivery of ethnic voting blocs to the Liberals didn't happen, nor do ethnic groups vote in blocs today. As part of the policy of multiculturalism, the Fraser Government funded various people, particularly small groups of Greeks and Italians, who claimed to represent their broader community.

However, for all its rhetoric of multiculturalism, the Fraser Government continued to give preference to British people in immigration. The Greeks and Italians who had been funded, and in effect established as pressure groups by the Fraser Government, exerted pressure for a widening of family reunion provisions, believing that this would allow more Greeks and Italians to be admitted.

Mr MacKellar did widen the category before he left the Ministry. Continued pressure from the Greek and Italian groups on the new Minister. Ian McPhee. saw a much more fundamental change to the family reunion programme. In 1979 he introduced a new category called "concessional family reunion" - which greatly facilitated the entry of family members, such as brothers and sisters.

Though the expansion of the family reunion programme was a Liberal initiative, the Labor Opposition had endorsed the wider family reunion approach to immigration before the Government. In general though, it opposed large increases to the intake.

But the ALP, from the mid-seventies, in Victoria. as part of its own "ethnic electioneering" and to counter the Liberal initiatives, established and expanded Greek speaking Party branches. This was intended as a way of trying to ensure the support of people of Greek background did not drift to the Liberals. The News Weekly of 6 June this year notes that there are 20 'ethnic" ALP branches in Victoria. Apparently 14 of these are Greek. Other ethnically exclusive branches consist of Turks, Lebanese, Kurds, Macedonians and Cambodians.

In spite of the claims of Greek and Italian professional ethnics that there was a strong desire for expanded family reunion among their wider communities, very few Greeks and Italians took advantage of the changes initiated by Mr MacKellar and Mr McPhee to bring out relatives. More British people used this new category than Greeks and Italians. The big users of the new category were Asian people.

The llawke Government inherited both the policy of multiculturalism, which it immediately embraced and strengthened, and the family reunion change in immigration policy.

Prior to World War Two, organised labour had traditionally opposed high immigration, but the business sector had supported it. This was because immigration had the effect of forcing wages and working conditions down by adding to the supply of labour relative to demand. Business also believed a larger population would increase its market.

At various times in the 19th Century, employers had proposed importing cheap indentured labour from Asia, particularly after convict transportation to the Eastern Colonies ceased. Opposition to the introduction of cheap Asian workers came to loom large in the labour movement.

In 1878, when Australasian Steam Navigation Company replaced European seamen with cheaper Chinese labour. there was a strike which was supported by unions in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and New Zealand. The strikers eventually won.

This positive proof that employers were prepared to use cheap Asian labour to displace European workers, combined with fears of being overrun by Chinese in the wake of Chinese immigration during the gold rush, brought the union movement closer together. An inter-colonial trade union congress was held in 1879 to call for entry restrictions on Chinese to Australia.

At the same time as the labour movement pushed for exclusion, conservative politicians. through representing employer groups, saw a value in the social cohesion they believed would be fostered in importing people of basically - British-stock. In other words, the evolving idea of White Australia on both sides of politics was a very influential, unifying factor among the colonies. This was one thing the conservatives and the labour movement could agree on. Between 1881 and 1888 the colonies enacted legislation restricting Chinese immigration.

At Federation, the White Australia policy was one of the first pieces of legislation passed by the new Australian Government. It was not only a unifying factor, but laid the basis for the relative stability and prosperity of future generations. No matter how much people of today may abhor the racial hostility which was deeply felt in the labour movement in particular and widely expressed in such papers as "The Bulletin"; this exclusion of cheap Asian labour laid the basis for reforms in working conditions which set world standards.

If the labour movement had not been so vigorous in pressing for exclusion. Australia may have well gone the way of Malaysia and Fiji where cheap indentured labour was imported by the British, so keeping wages and working conditions down. Also hostility to the descendants of those labourers. who came to constitute large sections of the population, has been an on-going problem in Malaysia and led to the 1987 coups in Fiji.

If our forebears are to be judged on the White Australia policy, they have to be judged according to standards and imperatives of their time. It should be remembered by those strident critics from the fashionable middle class left, including those who inhabit such publicly funded organisations as the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, that the famous names of the Labor Party strongly supported the White Australia policy. These included H.V. Evans, the first President of the United Nations General Assembly, who announced the Declaration of Human Rights, but insisted that Australia had the right to chose the composition of its own people.

With the changing times though, the White Australia policy had to change. The relative slowness to adapt to the necessary change may help explain why the self-anointed elites are such champions of a high immigration intake today.

Given our past, they don't think we have a "moral" right to be firm in our own interests when it comes to immigration.

As noted, before World War Two the labour movement continued to oppose immigration for economic reasons, but immigration continued strongly, except for periods of recession and depression.

The threat of invasion by Japan during World War II had a deep effect on Australian politicians. They saw Australians exposed as a tiny population, inadequate to hold a vast continent against invaders. The 19th Century slogan "populate or perish" was revived and heard on all sides. The Chifley Labor Government of the day was convinced we needed more people.

So it was mainly fear, the fear of invasion, which motivated the mass post-war immigration programme. It was launched by Immigration Minister, Arthur CaIwell, with bi-partisan support. The conservatives, of course, traditionally favoured immigration. The Menzies Government which followed, continued it. Although there have been non-British settlers from the earliest days in Australia, the country was overwhelmingly of Anglo-Celtic descent before World War Two. With the mass immigration programme large numbers of people from continental European countries came to Australia, particularly from southern Italy and Greece.

During the Whitlam Government, the labour movement eventually reasserted its more traditional opposition to immigration. Economic recession was a large factor, but not the only factor, though Mr Whitlam himself stated in his book The WhitIam Government 1972 - 75 that "the Government, due to the advert of world recession, was forced to constantly reduce its annual targets for migrant intake. The size of the new settler programme was reduced from 140,000 to I 10, 000 in December 1972 to 80.000 in late 1974 and to 50,000 in late 1975".

The administration of the programme under Mr Al Grassby, who served as Minister for Immigration from December 1972 to June 1974, was unusual. As Peter Hartcher indicated in The Sydney Morning Herald of 3 May 1991, the approach Mr Grassby took to his portfolio was to "surrender" to special interest group pressures.

Hartcher notes - "in a year in which 112,000 immigrants entered Australia, Grassby 's office decided the vast bulk of the annual intake on the basis of special interest without reference to the Immigration Department". The potential for abuse of such an approach is obvious. Mr Grassby also foreshadowed the policy of multiculturalism, a concept which first gained credence in Canada, with the release of his paper, "A Multicultural Society in 1973.

It was only after Mr Grassby had lost his seat in the 1974 election and was replaced as Minister that immigration levels were cut to the bone and, in a revamp of the department, immigration was merged with the Department of Labour and relegated to second place.

The entity was called the Department of Labour and Immigration and the former Labor Minister. Clyde Cameron, became its Minister in June 1974. Mr Cameron lasted less than a year in the new portfolio and was replaced in June 1975 by James McClelland. who held the post until the Whitlam Government was dismissed by the Governor General, Sir John Kerr, only five months later.

With the change to the Department of Labour and Immigration, the view was widely expressed that Australia had an obligation to train its own people in preference to bringing in skilled workers.

There were no accusations from ethnic groups that the changes and the immigration cuts were racist , rather they were generally seen as being sensible in the economic circumstances. The defence rationale for immigration was widely held to be discredited [and in recent years, expert opinion from the Defence Department has confirmed that, in this age of technological warfare, population increase has little impact on our defence capabilities].

But the Fraser Government, which replaced the Whitlam Government in late 1975. not only pushed the numbers back up, but, as has been seen, established a strong link between immigration and ethnic affairs. Criticism of the increased immigration intake became linked to criticism of ethnic groups. Betts notes that in 1976, Labor's Tom Uren, though he supported family reunion, criticised the general immigration increase. His criticism was attacked in Parliament by the Liberal, Roger Shipton as, "an insult to the migrant community … an attack upon migrants … an attack upon the relatives of people in Australia, it is an attack upon our refugee policies, and it is an attack upon migrant children".

This set the standard for the sort of emotive criticism people faced if they dared to question the immigration programme. In 1979 the Government established the Australian Institute of Multicultural Affairs as part of its response to a report by the prominent lawyer Frank Galbally. In 1981, in his inaugural address to the Institute, Mr Fraser endorsed "multiculturalism" as the official policy of the Commonwealth Government.

During the Fraser years, pressure groups claiming the non-British migrants who had come to Australia since World War II and their dependents as their constituency, had an increasing influence on immigration policy. As has been seen, their influence had the unintended consequence of increasing the component of Asian immigrants.

In the Hawke Government, the Immigration Minister, Stewart West, again wanted to bring down numbers and in particular to cut back on the skills intake of migrants. Mr West did not feel he could cut back on the family reunion and refugee areas, but he had a traditional Labor commitment to the training of locals, as did, initially. the Government. An Australian Parliamentary Library background paper, prepared by long-time immigration critic, Dr Bob Birrell, with Ernest Healy and T.F. Smith. outlines the position of the ALP at the time. The paper, released in March this year. is called "Migration Selection During the Recession".

The paper notes that in its early days, the Hawke Government introduced an "Occupational Share System" which restricted the entry of skilled migrants to areas which were deemed to be in short supply over the medium term in Australia. The determination of which skills were in short supply was made by the then Department of Employment and Industrial Relations [DEIR], which had Mr Ralph Willis as its Minister.

The scheme was implemented in 1984-85. The paper notes that ceilings were placed on the number of migrants who could be selected, in particular occupations over the programme year. The Government, in the words of its DEIR news release of 22 February 1984, aimed "to increase over time, through improved education and training efforts, the shares of jobs in skilled occupations taken up by Australian residents". This objective is consistent with a policy of maximum self-sufficiency in skills.

But at the same time as the Hawke Government cut back on the intake of skilled migrants, it eased the criteria for the concessional family category, which consists of "brothers and sisters, non-dependent children, parents not eligible for 'balance of family' - [i.e. most of their family do not live in Australia] - and nieces and nephews sponsored by relatives resident in Australia".

As has been noted, this category had been introduced under Liberal Immigration Minister, Ian McPhee in response to continued ethnic group pressure. At that time concessional applicants had to pass a selection test which was weighted towards skills and English language ability.

On taking office, the Hawke Government removed the English language requirement and less weight was given to skills. Again, this was in response to pressure from Government funded professional ethnics, again mainly from southern Europe. This made it easier for the people to qualify under the concessional category. The numbers coming in under this category expanded considerably and reached a high point of 39,246 in 1987 - 88. [Entry requirements for this category were further watered down in 1990 in response to ethnic pressures].

However, the initial pattern of cuts to skilled immigration meant that the overall number of migrants fell, at first, under Labor - to 62,000 in 1984. But the proportion of Asian migrants rose dramatically, because most in the favoured family reunion and refugee categories were Asian. This, as with the Liberals, was an unintended consequence of the appeasement of so-called leaders of other ethnic groups.

Mr West, a member of the left wing of the Labor Party, was concerned about the political allegiance of many of the refugees, who, coming from Indo-China, were not only anti-Communist, but overwhelmingly anti-socialist as well. They had little sympathy for the left wing of the Labor Party.

In an attempt to counterbalance this, Mr West broadened the refugee programme to include people from South and Central America who were opposed to right wing regimes and so sympathetic to the left.

In spite of this peculiar policy approach to refugees, it must also be said of Mr West that he was very sceptical about another component of the intake - the now discredited Business Migration Programme. At that early stage he clearly saw the potential of such a scheme for abuse.

There had been simmerings of discontent among the general public at the rate of increase in Asian immigration from the time of the Fraser Government. It was known by the "elites" that the general public was not happy with both the composition of the immigration intake and the policy of multiculturalism, but the general public was easy to handle as long as it had no focus and was not organised All the elites, including crucially the great bulk of the media were in agreement that these two issues should not be publicly discussed, or, if discussed, in such a way as to discredit those who questioned them.

It is true that many of these people were driven by good intentions. It was feared that the hostility which exists in every society of racial diversity, but was particularly claimed to exist in Australia, would overflow if not contained. Also, there was a large degree of middle class guilt over the White Australia policy and a belief that our future lay in Asia.

We were part of Asia, or so we were told ad nauseam. It was madness to upset Asian countries by questioning Asian immigration. It was also in extremely bad taste given our White Australia background. Therefore, the immigration was unexamined by the media, or, if examined. only in the most superficial terms. The "racist" general public had to be attacked and/or educated. The onus was on the host population to adapt and change to accommodate the newcomers, without question as to what affect these newcomers might be having on the society.

Then, in 1984 a prominent figure, Professor Geoffrey Blainey, who rightly speaking should have been seen as a member of the elite, one of the "educators", was perverse enough to break the consensus. He publicly criticised the rate of Asian immigration and said that social problems would result if it continued. He also strongly criticised the policy of multiculturalism, and noted that during his time on the Australia Council he was directed by the Government to give preference in funding to people of ethnic background. As the economist, Stephen Rimmer, notes in his highly recommended book, "The Cost of Multiculturalism" this "positive" discrimination aspect of multiculturalism has virtually become institutionalised throughout the public sector, particularly in the Immigration Department.

Professor Blainey was savagely attacked by the elites. He stood his ground. The public had a focus. A man of influence was articulating what was widely felt, but which had been suppressed.

In the ensuing backlash against Blainey, which saw his own academic colleagues savagely turn on him for daring to exercise his right of free speech, Stewart West was moved from Immigration.

But his successor, Chris Hurford, was a believer in high immigration. In 1985 he released the CEDA Report, which he took as supporting economic benefits of high immigration. One of the members of the steering committee of this report, Dr John Nieuwenhuysen, is the head of the Immigration Department's Bureau of Immigration Research, which is supposedly independent but continues to stress the benefits of high immigration.

The levels of immigration rose dramatically. Mr Hurford concentrated on increasing the economic category of the immigration intake but the component of family reunion also continued to rise. In mid-1986 he opened up a new independent category which gave priority to people with university degrees and a sound employment record.

Though he stressed the economic importance of high immigration, Mr Hurford did not have a strong commitment to multiculturalism. After the August 1986 Budget, the Government announced cuts to the English as a Second Language Programme, a cap on grants under the Ethnic Schools Programme, the end of the Multicultural Education Programme, the merger of the Special Broadcasting Services with the ABC and the abolition of the Australian Institute of Multicultural Affairs. As the Treasurer of the time, the present Prime Minister, Mr Keating, must have approved of these measures.

These changes were greeted with hostility by ethnic pressure groups, who with the backing of academics, bureaucrats and much of the media launched a campaign against them. The Prime Minister, Mr Hawke, was alarmed at the response and in 1987 attempted to regain the support of these ethnic groups. He replaced Mr Hurford with Mick Young, who was thought to be popular with ethnic groups and dropped the SBS-ABC merger proposal.

The Prime Minister's most significant act however, was to establish the Office of Multicultural Affairs [OMA], not within the Immigration Department, but within his own Department. The staff of OMA was vetted by the Federation of Ethnic Community Councils of Australia [FECCA], which itself was funded by the Federal Government [and in fact would probably not exist without such funding]. A former academic adviser to FEC CA, Dr Peter Shergold, became the head of OMA. He later became a Deputy Secretary in the Prime Minister's Department and is now Secretary of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission. Certain members of FECCA are fond of running a "we made him what he is today" line, when he is discussed.

These changes were accompanied by an increasing belief in academic, economic and bureaucratic circles that Australia had to integrate with Asia to secure its economic future. The rapid increase in Asian immigration, originally, as has been seen, an unintended consequence of the widening of family reunion provisions, was embraced by the elites as essential to our economic and social well being.

The Hawke Government began to pursue a deliberate policy of Asianisation, though publicly denied it was doing so. As Stephen Rimmer has pointed out, "the policy' of Asianisation, while linked and allied with the multicultural lobby" has a number of philosophical differences and rejects the idea that all cultures are of equal value to Australia. It gives primacy to Asian countries and cultures. The proponents of Asianisation view "multiculturalism as useful for engineering social change and silencing public debate" and so actively support the policy.

One of the strong influences behind Asianisation is a former Ambassador to China, Professor Ross Garnaut who used to be one of Mr Hawke's close circle of personal advisers, derisively dubbed "the Manchu Court" by Paul Keating, while he was Treasurer.

However, Mr Keating since he has become Prime Minister, for all his talk of nationalism has embraced the essentials of the Hawke position. Mr Keating uses Britain and British connections as a convenient straw man. Britain offers no threat to our national sovereignty or unity, but Mr Keating's attacks give the illusion of independence. At one and the same time he advocates "integration" - in other words dependency - in Asia.

Also, in spite of private reservations about the policy of multiculturalism, he appeases the multiculturalist lobby. He is both afraid of a backlash from ethnic groups in his own electorate and determined to keep the fashionable elites on side, including trendy arts bureaucrats and their clients who push the politically correct line.

Professor Garnaut's 1989 report, "Australia and the North-East Asian Ascendancy" which was greeted ecstatically in the press, is, in its fundamentals and in spite of quibbles over tariff levels which unexpectedly emerged between himself and Garnaut, Mr Keating's - as it was Mr Hawke's - blueprint for the future. Mr Keating has essentially embraced the ethos of "the Manchu Court" he once derided.

The "integration" of Australia into Asia is also enthusiastically pursued as a foreign policy objective by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator Gareth Evans, whose department released a report in late February this year strongly backing the Garnaut position. The report is called "Australia and North-East Asia in the 1990's:Accelerating Change" Things are clearly not proceeding fast enough for the Foreign Affairs bureaucrats. The report has been nicknamed "the son of Garnaut".

In a consideration of another publication, Senator Evans's own book on foreign policy released last year, "Australia's Foreign Relations in the World of the 1990's". The Age of 4 November 1991 quoted Senator Evans as making the claim that "increasingly Australians were accepting that their nation was part of Asia". In a foreword to his book, Senator Evans says "The late 1980's and early 1990's are watershed years for Australia. We are, whether fully recognising it or not, engaged in nothing less than the reshaping of our national identity".

That is to say, a section of the elites are attempting to engineer such a change, whether the people want it or not. Senator Evans is echoed by a herd of academics who can always be guaranteed wide and uncritical publicity for their books on the need to Asianise. One recently released book given a dream run, barely touched by the breath of academic criticism, was "The Yellow Lady: Australian Impressions of Asia " by Alison Broinowski. The book was launched by the Governor-General, Bill Hayden who once stated that it was inevitable that Australia would become a "Eurasian" country and welcomed the prospect. Though more recently he seems to have developed reservations about the administration of the immigration programme!

The author of "The Yellow Lady" is the same Alison Broinowski who gave a speech at an immigration conference held by the Evatt Foundation in Sydney on 24 April this year. The conference was titled: "A Fatal Shore or a Worker's Paradise?". At the conclusion of her speech she asked, in all seriousness, why Australia did not have an immigration category for domestic servants! No doubt writing fashionable books is hard work and she thought a cheap, foreign domestic would come in handy.

This is precisely the sort of thing which the labour movement in the past fought bitterly to prevent - namely the provision of cheap, imported labour for the wealthy at the expense of the wages and working conditions of locals. Ms Broinowski though used to such a lifestyle with her diplomat husband when they resided in foreign countries, could clearly not see a contradiction.

Senator Evans, along with such morally advanced supporters, clearly sees himself as being a major agent in the process of Asianisation. He states in the concluding chapter of his own book that Australia's foreign policy, as driven by himself, is acting as an important catalyst in building a new Australian identity, "one which is much more internationalist and regionally focused, than before". Senator Evans may one day care to stop and ask the Australian people, whose servant he is supposed to be, what they think of his words. So might the Prime Minister, Mr Keating, who clearly endorses them.

In the mid to late 1980's, the family reunion component of the immigration intake was the engine which drove the numbers up toward and beyond 150,000 per annum. Most in the family reunion category were low skilled and, as the ability to speak English had been downgraded as a requirement for immigration after 1984, many could not speak English. Low skilled people such as these would supposedly help improve our trade with Asia.

This policy of Asianisation was accompanied by an embracing of the free market and a pressure to cut protection of local industries, in line with Garnaut's recommendation to cut all tariffs by the year 2000. [As noted, the Keating Government has changed tack slightly, but not essentially, on tariffs].

But it was precisely these protected industries, such as automotive plants and the textiles, clothing and footwear industries where low skilled. non-English speaking migrants had been largely employed in the boom years of the past. By bringing in such large numbers of immigrants at the same time as future job prospects for them was declining, Government policy was clearly contradicting itself.

The recent closure of the Nissan automotive plant in Victoria starkly illustrated this contradiction. A report in the Australian Financial Review of 17 March this year highlighted the prevalence of migrant workers in the highly protected automotive industry. It quotes a survey by the Work Placed Education Project for the Victorian Automotive Industry Training Board stating that "over 71 per cent of the State 's car workers were from non-English speaking backgrounds [and] over 34 per cent of these employees - typically production line workers - had arrived in Australia in the past five years".

These and the remainder of the 71 per cent non-English speakers, came from 53 countries and spoke a total of 67 different languages". How can such enterprises possibly compete with the Japanese and other mono-lingual countries as the Government continues to bring down the tariff walls protecting them? These industries will need massive injections of funds merely to bring communication skills to scratch.

The lack of English language in the workplace has been estimated by the Office of Multicultural Affairs itself to cost $3.2 billion dollars per year in extra time needed to communicate.

Where will these workers be employed if the factories close?

The low skilled, non-English background migrants the Government is continuing to import - despite the recent cut in the programme to 80,000 for the 1992-93 year -directly compete with those already in Australia for scarce positions. To continue to import people of this profile in large numbers, as is done through the preferential family reunion component, works against both migrant and non-migrant Australians. as well as the best interests of the country in general. Australia is well on the way to creating an intractable pool of long term unemployed.

Also, particularly during the 1980's, the size of the immigration intake, which acted to boost demand and direct local savings to the unproductive areas of housing and infrastructure, was in conflict with policies to dampen local demand for imports and encourage export capacity. To complicate matters, from 1985, precisely as immigration numbers were rising substantially, the Government cut back significantly on its spending. Public services such as hospitals, education and postal services have been compromised, but bureaucrats associated with immigration and multiculturalism - after the backlash to the proposed 1985 budget cuts - which have been noted - have had little problem in getting funds. In fact they, with other politically correct bureaucracies which interlock them, have become a growth industry even in the midst of a severe recession.

In the l980's. the ever increasing immigration intake was also accompanied by a sustained attack on the worth of "old" Australians who resented the changes and could not see how they benefited from them. The elites preached that it was precisely because Australians were so lazy, dull and unimaginative that such an immigration programme was vital to "invigorate" the country economically and make us face up to the 'reality" that Australia was part of Asia.

The elites had also consistently pushed the line that Australia had no culture and that multiculturalism would invigorate us culturally as well, to the point where these attacks have been of significant impact in undermining local morale. Any commentator of reasonable intelligence should realise that good morale is fundamentally important to the economic health of a nation.

In 1983, a programme had been introduced, one designed to attract business migrants. Its introduction and subsequent justification is almost a classic case of the colonial mentality in action. Given that locals were considered second rate, we had to import business people. In January 1988, under Mick Young as Minister, the prevailing belief in deregulation and the deification of the market saw the administration of the programme virtually handed over to private enterprise middle men whose driving motivation was the profits they could make. They, at one and the same time, were employed and paid by prospective migrants, mainly from Hong Kong and Taiwan and also entrusted by the Government to decide which migrants gained entry to Australia.

When rumours of mismanagement arose, the bulk of the media relied on the testimony of these middle-men and others in the immigration industry. They, of course, including representatives from the Immigration Department, claimed the scheme was working well and did not hesitate to smear critics as racist. The Business Migration Programme became a byword as a massive rort, but for years nothing was done about it. Finally, in 1991, the all party Federal Public Accounts Committee was directed to investigate the programme.

The Australian of 15 April 1991 reported that the Australian Federal Police stated in a submission to the Committee that it was concerned that "individuals are arriving in Australia under the Business Migration Programme by using funds provided by organised crime. It is thought that the funds are then recycled and used to fund … immigrants under the Business Migration Programme. It is also suspected that the scheme is being used to launder money by known criminal groups which lend the immigrants the money required far the scheme. No apparent checks are made to ensure that the funds for the Business Migration Programme are kept and used within Australia".

The Australian Federal Police believed that Triad crime gangs were using the scheme to help them relocate to Australia before Hong Kong was taken over by the People's Republic of China. About 10,000 business migrants and 30,000 dependents entered Australia under the scheme.

The Australian Tax Office noted that in 1987 the Immigration Department had given it a list of names of 100 successful business migration applicants, but had been unable to provide any other personal information. The Tax Office could trace only seven of the migrants. and only two of those had lodged tax returns. Despite evidence such as this, the Immigration Department continued to claim that the programme was working well right up until the Committee delivered its report on 21 June.

The report was a scathing indictment of the Business Migration Programme and also stands as an indictment of the integrity and professional competence of the Immigration Department itself. The Committee said that the programme was flawed from the start, had been "disastrously" mismanaged and called for its abolition.

In spite of this, the Secretary of the Immigration Department, Chris Conybeare, subsequently claimed in letters to newspapers that the scheme had not been so bad alter all and that any new scheme would be based on what he called the "successes of the old". What does it take before the Immigration Department and other immigration advocates will face up to their failures?

Further, given that the elites are so desperately afraid of how Australia is perceived in Asia - sections of ~e press harp upon this theme constantly - it is interesting to note that the scheme became a standing joke among the Hong Kong business community. Far from increasing our prestige in Asia, it, along with the Education for Export fiasco, which will be considered later, has significantly diminished it.

The Business Migration Programme has since been scrapped, but private sector immigration agents lobbied hard for a new scheme to suit their purposes. The new business scheme - the Independent/Business Skills category - was announced by Mr Hand on 17 December last year and began in February this year. The scheme supposedly has strict controls, which will include extensive monitoring of the successful applicants, but given the record of the Immigration Department, it is yet to be seen how it will work out in practice.

Australia has gained a reputation for mismanagement and confusion in dealing with Asian countries. It is instructive to note the comments of the Executive Director of the Indonesian Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Hadi Soesastro, who said in April 1991 that Australia was part of the Pacific and should identify with the Pacific. "We, in East Asia should also identify ourselves with the Pacific and that is where we meet. It's time for all of us to look to our individual positions in the larger Pacific rim". Australia's pathetic efforts to graft itself to Asia is a source of bewilderment in Asia and has made us appear as a country sadly lacking in confidence. This has been exacerbated by the deeply embarrassing, cringing attitude our officials adopt towards Asian countries.

It should also be noted that a de-facto guest worker scheme has been in operation in the tourist industry in Australia for several years, with Japanese-owned companies overwhelmingly employing Japanese nationals holding working holiday or temporary resident visas as tour-guides, in preference to locals.

This allows Japanese companies to form a network, whereby Japanese tourists fly into Australia on Japanese planes, stay at Japanese owned hotels and go on Japanese owned guide tours, filled with Japanese tour guides. Where the job prospects for Australians materialise is uncertain

Attention has been brought to this practice by the recent proposal by Japanese tourist companies to import up to 2,000 Japanese to work as guides in the local industry. The Sydney Morning Herald of 3 June states, "Figures show that last yew; only five of 96 tour guides working with Japanese tourists in Cairns were Japanese-speaking Australians. On the Gold Coast only 36 of 278 guides were Australians. The remainder were Japanese [on short stay visas]". It is claimed that guides from Japan will be only a short to medium-term prospect while locals are trained, but there is no sign that such training has been seriously contemplated.

In spite of general attempts to stifle debate on immigration, the public discontent with immigration was noted and acknowledged by Mick Young when he was Minister. He commissioned a report into immigration and chose Dr Stephen Fitzgerald who, like Garnaut, was once an Ambassador to China, to head the study. Mr Young left the Immigration portfolio before the report was released. Mr Clyde Holding was the Immigration Minister when the report was handed down in 1988. It was widely expected that the report would back up the Government. Instead the report was by implication and in particular, very critical of the policy of multiculturalism.

During the inquiry, Dr Fitzgerald spoke to hundreds of people claiming to represent ethnic groups and not one of them spoke of immigration in terms of the national interest. He was disgusted and later commented privately that the ethnic lobby didn't "give a stuff' about the national interest. He personally became strongly opposed to the policy of multiculturalism. The report also recommended that Australia should ~disengage~ from the Indo-Chinese refugee programme and merge the Independent and Concessional Family Reunion categories into an ~Open" category, which took more account of Australian labour market needs.

As the paper "Migration Selection During the Recession" stated: "The Commission agreed that extended family reunion was not a right and that only those meeting Australia's economic, demographic, social and cultural priorities should be selected". The Fitzgerald Report favoured continuing high immigration rates, but with an emphasis on skilled workers. The criticisms of multiculturalism and the family reunion and refugee policies in the report were leaked by a disgruntled committee member to OMA, which subsequently orchestrated a campaign against the report even before it was delivered.

Once it was delivered, both Mr Holding and Mr Hawke at first distanced themselves from it. Dr Andrew Theophanous, Chairman of the Caucus Committee on Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, and Chairman of the all party Migration Regulations Committee weighed in.

Since shortly after entering Parliament in 1980, Dr Theophanous had made immigration matters his speciality. He took it upon himself to condemn the report out of hand on behalf of the Labor Party.

Subsequently, the role of the Caucus Committee in the Government's consideration of the Fitzgerald recommendations was crucial. Dr Theophanous claimed in 1991 that an Immigration Minister couldn't make decisions that go to Cabinet before they go through the Caucus Committee. He said there were 22 meetings of the Caucus Committee to consider the Fitzgerald Report and "we then determined, with the Minister [then Senator Ray} the shape of things". He said the Committee got agreement with the Minister on 80 per cent of issues, but couldn't get agreement on four key issues.

In Cabinet however, the Committee got its own way on three out of four of those issues. The basic composition of the programme was maintained: 50 per cent family reunion, 40 per cent economic and 10 per cent refugee, though the economic component actually fell. There was no "disengagement" from the Indo-Chinese refugee programme and the Independent and Concessional categories were maintained along. of course. with the policy of multiculturalism. The Minister had wanted points to be awarded for English language across the whole programme, but the Committee managed to exclude it as a factor in family reunion sections. The other change went to strengthen the primacy of family reunion in the immigration programme.

The only victory the Minister achieved was to have regulations introduced to reduce the amount of Ministerial discretion in immigration matters. Senator Ray stated that Ministerial discretion had led to a "skew factor" in immigration decisions in the past. Discretion had allowed intensive lobbying of the Minister by pressure groups and so increased their influence over immigration decisions. Senator Ray indicated in Parliament in December 1989 when introducing the regulations that "1987 one particular year in our history" one former Immigration Minister specialised in having immigrants apply to his office rather than go through the Department. Senator Ray stated "more drug pushers got in that one year than during the rest of the years put together

Senator Ray continued: "A [diligent] Minister - not be going out and spending $5m to deport a drug pusher and, after all that money has been spent, have his colleague come in the next day and write one word on the form - admit -with a signature. We will do away with this business of marginal seats candidates trooping into a succession of Labor and Liberal Ministers and saying "I must get this case

In spite of all this, the Caucus Committee wanted Ministerial discretion to be maintained. There is a potential problem with complex regulation, in that lawyers, spying profits to be made, could complicate immigration proceedings further, as indeed they have done. In fact, immigration law has become extremely complex and has spawned a parasite growth industry of migration agents.

But that was not the basis of the Caucus Committee objection. As will be seen in the face of this and other opposition, the Senator's victory was short lived.

At any rate, sources in the Immigration Department have confirmed that widespread lobbying of the Department by Politicians on behalf of others is still very common. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, but, as Senator Ray has indicated, there is considerable scope for problems to arise where the cases seem to have little intrinsic merit.

With the release of the Fitzgerald Report and polls showing public disenchantment with the levels of Asian immigration, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr John Howard, sensed an opportunity and entered the fray.

Though Mr Howard is, these days, an excellent critic of immigration policy and multiculturalism, at that time his approach was ill considered. Instead of carefully examining the evidence, getting his facts straight and proceeding with a strong philosophical base and standing firm under pressure, he jumped into the fray unprepared. He hinted that a Coalition Government would slow down Asian immigration, but refused to be definite. As a result he was easily tripped up and discredited, despite his genuine concern for social stability. As part of his approach Mr Howard jettisoned multiculturalism. There was a split with senior members of the Party, including Ian MacPhee and the present immigration spokesman Phillip Ruddock. In general though, there was agreement on actual numbers. The Liberals wanted even more immigrants than Fitzgerald had recommended.

With the Liberal coup just before the last election, Mr Andrew Peacock replaced Mr Howard, and Mr Ruddock replaced Mr Alan Cadman as Shadow Immigration Minister. Multiculturalism was again embraced and it was emphasised that Asian immigration was not an issue. The Liberal policy was still to push the overall immigration numbers up.

Meanwhile, in an attempt to gain foreign currency, the Department of Education, Employment and Training has also had an effect on immigration. A new full-fee paying overseas student policy was introduced in 1986 under the then Minister, Mr John Dawkins. As part of his policy, and again without adequate government controls, private English language schools were encouraged to establish themselves, mainly in Sydney and Melbourne. These schools were supposed to attract foreign, particularly Asian students, who would pay for a short-term course and then return to their countries of origin. That was the theory.

From the very first these schools were used as a front by supposed students to obtain back door entry to Australia. The Government was warned that this would happen. Even a Kung Fu school was allowed to recruit Chinese nationals as students. Loans were raised by students in places such as Hong Kong or on arrival, and the students then worked in Australia to pay them back, with the result that much of the expected foreign exchange did not eventuate.

The Immigration Department, under Clyde Holding, officially passed on its concerns about the abuses of the programme to the Prime Minister. Mr Hawke in March 1988, but they were ignored.

Alter the 1989 massacre in Tiananmen Square. Australia found itself with thousands of Chinese students on its hands, the majority of whom had never intended to return to their homeland.

As John Masanauskas noted in The Age of 26 June 1991, the Education Department routinely allowed such students to abuse visa conditions and turned a blind eye to the use of forged medical certificates. The Department did not want to know about other abuses of the system.

John Masanauskas also stated that "By August 1989, the Government seemed to be saying enough is enough when it announced that there wou1d be strict checking of the bona fides of thousands of Chinese who prepaid their course fees, bitt had yet not been given visas. Despite the apparent toughness, opposition in Cabinet from the Education and Foreign Affairs Departments succeeded in watering down the policies. The result: an extra 25,000 Chinese nationals were allowed into Australia".

The Government cynically allowed the public to believe it was being tough while allowing the entry of these "students" knowing full well the sort of problems that might arise with them. Of this latter group, 17,000 have applied for refugee status. In other words, they claim they are afraid to return to China. when they were freely allowed to leave China after the massacre. The highly dubious claims of the students are being processed at the cost of millions of dollars of taxpayers money.

This aspect of the Chinese student fiasco has been allowed because of the direct and highly emotional intervention of the then Prime Minister, Mr Hawke, who granted the pre-Tiananmen students a four year extension to their visas and approved of the entry of the post-Tiananmen students.

Some of these students seem to have become very careless with their passports in recent times. As reported by John McNamee in the Sunday Telegraph in April this year, hundreds of passports belonging to Chinese students has been reported stolen in the previous few months. The report stated that, "Federal authorities suspect that the majority of the Chinese citizens reporting their passports lost or stolen have applied for refugee status in Australia". An Immigration Department spokesman is quoted as stating: "We think they believe, quite wrongly, that their applications for refugee status will be enhanced by them losing their passports."

However, the report stated that "unofficially" the authorities thought that the lost and stolen passports "may be part of a racket involving the entry into the country of illegal immigrants". It will be remembered that a prominent member of the Chinese community in Melbourne, Wellington Lee, accused the bulk of these students of trading "on the blood" of the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre. After the massacre, it was common practice for these "students" to publish their names in newspapers under denunciations of the Chinese Government.

A number later cited such self-publication of their names as a reason why they would face persecution if they returned to China.

Whatever the situation in China, it is clear that the Australian Government does not have the political will to return these students. In fact, Mr Keating in April this year wrote to a Chinese magazine to assure the 20,000 students who arrived before the massacre that they would not be forced back to China against their will. In effect he converted the four-year extension granted by Mr Hawke into permanent residency. Dr Hewson however, wrote a letter to the same magazine insisting that these students would be considered on a case by case basis under a Liberal Government. Given the assurances already made however, by both Mr Hawke and now Mr Keating, it is extremely unlikely that these students would be returned under a Liberal Government. The case would be put in the too hard basket. To all intents and purposes the 20.000 are here to stay

Already the Immigration Department has signalled that about 14,000 relatives at least will be able to come out from China to join the students who have already been accepted. With the chain migration effect the figure is likely to be increased by several times that number in the next few years. This is quite apart from those Chinese students who arrived after the massacre and are applying for refugee status. In fact. the present Minister for Immigration, Mr Hand, has acknowledged that if all these Chinese students were granted permanent residence they could sponsor a further 300,000 relatives under the family reunion scheme within a decade. The relatives in turn will be able to sponsor others.

It should be stressed though, that the Immigration Department is not responsible for this fiasco. Mr Hand had privately, like the Immigration Department under Senator Ray, opposed the blanket de-facto acceptance of the Chinese students announced by Mr Hawke. The Immigration Department also consistently warned of the likely problems with the students from before the time of the massacre.

The principal responsibility for the fiasco lies with the Department of Education. Employment and Training under Mr Dawkins which imposed itself on immigration matters and exercised a minimum of supervision over the programme it initiated. It is also the result of the personal intervention of Prime Minister Hawke in particular, but also the Department of Foreign Affairs under Senator Gareth Evans, which, with the Education Department, was instrumental in allowing the extra 25,000 Chinese students into the country after the massacre. Since then, as noted, Mr Keating has weighed in and compounded the problem.

A scheme which was aimed at raising money has, in large part, become a financial and social liability. No doubt the advisers who dreamed it up are still drawing healthy salaries and coming up with new schemes.

In fact, they were dishonest enough to try to pretend that there were no problems with the programme. even in the face of solid evidence. Senator Robert Ray, when he was Immigration Minister, was very concerned about the issue.

He had to bring Dr Bob Birrell of the National Population Council, the man who had been instrumental in bringing these problems to light. to Canberra from Melbourne to argue the point against officials of the Department of Employment, Education and Training who were still defending their scheme.

In fact, both the Federal and State Governments have since expanded their education-selling activities in China. This includes the distribution of a promotional video throughout China and arrangements between the NSW TAFE system and a Chinese agency to provide Chinese students. Mr Dawkins also reached a similar agreement with Chinese counterparts before he left the Education portfolio to become Treasurer. Australia is also to open a Consulate in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong which will, among other staff, have immigration and education officials. Clearly. Australian Governments seem to have learnt little from experience and another problem is in the making.

The upshot of the Chinese student fiasco is that Australia will be accepting thousands of people as immigrants who it had no intention of accepting. This is on top of the already very high level of immigration, which the Immigration Department does want to maintain and which its research body, the Bureau of Immigration Research, which was established while Senator Ray was Minister, supports with selective reports.

As for the refugee programme apart from the Chinese students, it is clear it also has been massively rorted. Officials from the Immigration Department itself admit that up to 50 per cent of refugee applications are bogus. Given the record of the Department it is highly likely that it has understated the problem.

As far as boat people specifically go, Australia is facing a second wave. As David Jenkins noted in The Sydney Morning Herald of 6 June this year, the first occurred after the fall of Saigon in 1975. About 2,000 Vietnamese boat people arrived in Australia between 1975 and 1981. Far more - 43,000 - were flown to Australia by plane from refugee camps in Asia during those years.

Jenkins states: "A number [of the boat people] were ethnic Chinese fleeing persecution and harshly restrictive economic policies". However, Jenkins states that there were indications that not all of the boats which arrived in Australia in that wave had set out from Vietnam. He quotes a source from the Immigration Department as stating: 'The last boat, in 1981 came from Thailand. But there were others we have always had great doubt about.

No refugee boats arrived in Australia for the next 8 years.

The second wave, which began in 1989 with a boat from Cambodia, is different in character from the first, and claims of the boat people are far more dubious.

The Immigration Department's Deputy Secretary, Mr Wayne Gibbons, told the Migration Regulations Committee in 1991 that refugee rorts would worsen if boat people in this second wave were given the right to apply for residence on humanitarian grounds, as well as refugee grounds, as had been suggested in some quarters. He said: "If we relax controls on our borders, we are sending a great signal to the world which might result in large numbers of people turning up trying their luck … and also (genuine) claimants are not the most deserving of the refugee claims".

In spite of this clear warning, the Chairman of the Committee, the ubiquitous Dr Theophanous, strongly supported giving boat people a 'second chance" to apply on humanitarian grounds if they failed the refugee test and said his committee might urge Mr Hand to accept this view. Mr Hand indicated that the humanitarian aspect of the immigration programme would be flexible to respond to the possible large movements of world population. Flexibility of response is not a bad thing, but in this case. in spite of Mr Hand toughening his stance on illegal immigrants, there would be every incentive for bogus refugees to continue to try their luck in Australia.

By February this year, Mr Hand had honestly admitted that in refugee matters he "had been taken for a bit of a dill" by lawyers and others claiming to represent refugees. This is a refreshing change from the bureaucrats who generally refuse to admit any errors. Mr Hand indicated that the Government would crack down heavily, because as he stated. "I hate rorters". He outlined procedures which would allow the prompt processing of refugee claims and the deportation of those whose claims were rejected. In the past, some claims have taken several years to process with the result that residential status was virtually assured by default.

The cost of accommodating these refugees runs in the millions of dollars each year. A First Assistant Secretary in the Immigration Department. Mr Mark Sullivan, stated before a Senate Committee in early April this year that 438 boat people had arrived in Australia between November 1989 and January this year. He said the cost of accommodating them was about $6 million last financial year and would be about $8 million this year. Mr Sullivan said 22 of these people had absconded from their low security compounds and 15 were still at large.

Since then, another eight Cambodians have absconded from Villawood and six are still missing. The costs above of course do not include such things as legal aid, which is available to boat people to contest court cases against the Immigration Department. and has provided a lucrative practice for lawyers. The Coalition estimates the overall cost to Australia involved in the processing of refugee claims - including the Chinese students - at about $500 million. Shadow Immigration Minister, Mr Phillip Ruddock, said on 12 April this year that this estimate included, "benefits, holding arrangements, additional staff for refugee processing, legal assistance and so on".

It is one thing to process the refugees and another thing entirely to send them home. Cambodian boat people claiming to be refugees and held at Port Hedland indicated in early March this year that they would refuse to return to their country and would rather die in Australia.

They had already been here waiting a decision on their case for two years. This has basically been due to the delaying tactics of the people representing them, particularly "human rights" lawyers, the fact that Mr Hand was played for a dill - and lengthy bureaucratic procedures.

As Lenore Taylor in the Weekend Australian of 14-15 March this year stated, "From the Just boat load [of the second wave] in 1989, Australia's refugee processing system was tested. Refugee applications were lodged a month after their arrival. But then a group of supporters and lawyers lobbied Mr Hand on behalf of the boat people; it was said there had been insufficient time to write an application that would give them the best chance. Mr Hand agreed to the applications being re-lodged, bitt they were not lodged again for 16 months". Taylor notes that a similar pattern was followed with the next boatload of 119, who arrived in March 1990 and are being held in Villawood in Sydney. They used the same delaying tactics. A third boat of 79 Cambodians "arrived" in June [1990] and took more than a year to lodge re/it gee applications in November 1991.

As indicated, these refugee claimants are never short of outside advisers, some of whom are experts at milking the media. Apart from the excellent factual article by Taylor, The Weekend Australian of the same date also published a piece on the refugees by the paper's foreign editor, Greg Sheridan, under the headline "Serial Murderers Get More Reasonable Treatment". The front page of the paper also featured a large close up picture of the face of one of the refugees, "baby Cohn" behind a wire fence. Clearly the shot was set up to gain maximum emotional impact. This sort of emotionalism will continue to be used by sections of the media to cloud the larger issues at stake.

The Cambodians went on a short-lived hunger strike, which was readily abandoned when their adviser. a locally-based Catholic priest, Father Larry Reitmeyer, suggested they should stop, as reported in the West Australian of March 11. The Cambodians at Villawood also went on a short-lived hunger strike at about the same time.

To Minister Hand's credit, he has repeated his intention to stand firm and has shown great resolve on this issue, in spite of his softness in other areas. After initially being taken for a ride, he has learnt from bitter experience. He said that if he was "forced to sabotage the system" to allow the boat people to circumvent the process he would resign. This seems to be a message to Mr Keating and other Cabinet Ministers that he will not tolerate the sort of intervention in his portfolio which has occurred in the past particularly under the leadership of Mr Hawke. In Parliament on May 5 Mr Hand stated: "In theory I have the ability and control over matters that I ain concerned with, I will be scrupulously fair and firm. The problem is that I have not always had that ability or control over certain things".

On the same date, Mr Hand also pointed out a media ploy which was used to try to milk sympathy for the boat people in Port Hedland. Mr Hand stated: "a woman was shown on television stumbling out of a car. She was encouraged to run to the fence to embrace her son through the wire. But the departmental officers had made arrangements to have the gate open 50 yards down the road so that the car couldn't drive in and she could embrace her son in a proper way. But that was not good television; that was not good copy".

Mr Hand also pointed to the tactics of some church leaders: 'a bishop goes on television and alleges that the Department and I have engaged in some sort of complicity in an abortion process, and then he carefully backed away. That is another …. lie - bishop or no bishop. That was never going to happen".

But this sort of pressure can be expected to increase in the future. The Government will clearly face great difficulties in sending the so-called refugees home. If they are allowed to stay it is an absolute certainty that more will follow.

A group of Chinese are also being held in Port Hedland along with the Cambodians and some Vietnamese and Poles. These are some of the 56 boat people from South China who arrived in the Kimberley in WA on December 3 1991 without the knowledge of authorities and wandered around for days before being picked up. Ten of these people were transferred from Port Hedland to Roebourne gaol. This has sparked another humanitarian outcry and the Human Rights Commission was quick to jump in to "monitor" the situation. Apparently seven of these ten had previously escaped from Port Hedland, and according to the Immigration Department were considered a threat to the safety of the other detainees and immigration staff According to the Department, other detainees had in fact asked for them to be removed, though this had been contested by church groups.

Another 10 Chinese arrived by boat in Darwin on 10 May and have since been transferred to Port Hedland. Their initial application for refugee status has been rejected and they have appealed. Most remarkable of all however, was the discovery of 12 Polish 'boat people" on Saibai Island in the Torres Strait on 22 May. These people were clearly in the process of making an attempt to cross to Australia from Papua New Guinea when they found themselves stranded on the island and gave themselves up to local residents.

They had previously made inquiries to Australian immigration staff earlier in the month in Port Moresby about visiting Australia. Now they claim they face political persecution if they return to Poland, have claimed refugee status and have been transferred to Port Hedland. Mr Ruddock is indeed correct in saying that their arrival is a disturbing precedent. They are not "boat" people, but "aeroplane" people, who attempted the last leg of their journey by boat. Aeroplane is not an uncommon mode of entry to western countries by so-called refugees, particularly in North America and Europe. Given the economic state of many Eastern European nations, if the Poles are successful with their application there are many more who will follow their example. The Poles will be represented at public expense by the group Australian Lawyers for Refugees, who have also represented the 56 Chinese boat people.

The arrival of the Chinese boat people was also very disturbing - apart from health concerns raised by graziers about the first group and the slackness of coastal monitoring - on two counts. The first is that, like the Poles, they could have no pretence for political persecution.

Their motivation was clearly economic and if they are successful with their refugee applications, there are no doubt tens of thousands of others from China who will be encouraged to try their luck.

Secondly, the Chinese boat people were assisted by Indonesia to reach Australia, particularly the first group of 56. The Age of January 23 this year, among a number of papers, pointed this out. The Age carried a story which stated: "The Indonesian media reported in July that the boat people, who had come from southern China, either wrecked or substantially' damaged their Chinese boat. They were forced to… trade-in their boat for an Indonesian one. An Australian immigration official, who refused to be named, said yesterday that preliminary interviews with some of the boat-people have revealed that a number of them were detained by Indonesian authorities during the five months they spent in the Indonesian archipeligo.

Naturally the Indonesians, who have become tired of the demands boat people have placed upon their resources in the past, would have no desire to accept them in the first place, but re-equipping them and sending them on to Australia would be a perfect way of both embarrassing and exerting influence on the Australian Government. Both Malaysia and Indonesia have been upset by Australian criticism of their internal affairs and sending on refugees is one way of getting square.

There is always the threat that in the event of a major exodus many more could be actively assisted to reach Australia if relations with the countries to our north soured. The boat people would know, in those circumstances, that they were assured of stopover points and assistance, making the trip less hazardous and therefore more attractive. During the Afghan war, East Germany dumped thousands of people claiming to be refugees on West Germany, which because of its constitution - recently amended to try to stem the flow of economic refugees from Eastern Europe - was obliged to accept them. The refugees had been transported thousands of miles by air from Afghanistan by the Russians expressly for the purpose. So the potential of using or orchestrating the movement of people into other states as an instrument of strong-arm diplomacy, or war, is definitely there.

That is not to say that we need to cravenly appease Malaysia and Indonesia. Standing up for ourselves and our own values, while at the same time not indulging in moralising over their internal affairs will gain us respect. Our system and values are right for us, but it is arrogant in the extreme to attempt to impose our ways upon others. It is interesting to note that our relations with Malaysia, in particular, were far better before the new breed, which fluctuates between craven appeasement and moralising, took control in Foreign Affairs.

More generally, the contention has been put forward by B.A. Santamaria and others that because of worldwide population pressures and movements, Australia is obliged to continue with a large immigration and refugee programme. The argument goes that if Australia cuts its immigration intake significantly then we would eventually be forced to take more people anyway. Mr Santamaria suggests that the United Nations might impose such a solution upon us, or at least sanction large scale movements of people towards Australia.

The simple answer to that is that if population pressures ever get so great that such a movement is encouraged it will occur anyway, no matter what level of immigration we have. Also, Australia is not exactly defenceless and Australians. at least at the grass roots level, are not so weak that they would allow themselves to be invaded without resistance. Mr Santamaria does not adequately consider the wishes of Australians. This after all is our country and we have the sovereign right to determine our own destiny. If the great majority of Australian people decide they are prepared to take their chances in cutting immigration, then that is their prerogative. This country is supposed to be a democracy after all.

Further, Mr Santamaria's attitude implies a negative resignation and encourages immigration abuses to continue. Why bother to strive for proper selection procedures when we are going to be engulfed anyway? In fact there is no iron law to say that we will be engulfed, but if we court such a prospect, this prophecy will have a dangerous tendency to fulfil itself.

Australia is not only entitled to cut immigration significantly, it is also entitled to have a rigorous selection procedure for refugees. Indeed such a procedure is vital if abuses of the system and the flow of boat people to Australia are to be checked.

It is interesting to note that not all of the members of the Migrant Regulations Committee were as blase as Dr Theophanous about the refugee problem. One said many boat people were wealthy and had bought their way to Australia, intending to enter through the back door. A report on the ABC radio news on November 11, 1991 indicated that a number of Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong camps had criminal records and others without records had been persuaded to operate with the criminals in protection rackets in the camps. These people had been among the most vociferous in opposing forced repatriation to Vietnam. Though the Vietnamese Government has said it would not persecute the people returned from the camps, it said it would prosecute people who had committed crimes before they had left. One has already been charged with murder.

The Liberal Party Immigration spokesman, Mr Ruddock, is on record however as opposing forced repatriation of Vietnamese from Hong Kong. As Mr Hand pointed out in Parliament on 5 May, Mr Ruddock, at a Vietnamese function on 5 January 1990, issued a press release which stated: "Phillip Ruddock, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs today suggested that the United Kingdom Government should rethink its policy on forced return of Vietnamese boat people from Hong Kong". Mr Hand suggested that Mr Ruddock changed his message to suit his audience.

On 5 May. Mr Hand introduced changes to the Migration Act, which, among other things, meant that courts would no longer have the power to release boat people while their applications for refugee status were being considered. This was designed to ensure that applications would be lodged promptly and prevent further legal delay.

There was an outcry against the legislation which effectively circumvented an attempt by lawyers to use the Federal Court to have 37 Cambodians released from detention pending a decision on their refugee status. As has been seen, lawyers had strung out the determination process and have subsequently moved to challenge the legislation in the High Court, which is not likely to hear the case until November. All this is being funded by the public. Refugees are clearly a nice little earner for humanitarian lawyers.

Most of the media continues to portray the refugee problem in purely bleeding heart terms, as if all the refugees were merely innocent victims, instead of looking at the problem closely. It is clear that the soft approach taken in the past has made things worse, not better, and countries such as Australia have in many cases been played for fools. The former Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, said as much several years ago. It is high time that the situation was dealt with firmly.

Bob Bottom. a journalist and author who has written extensively on organised crime produced a publication called "Insight Bookmagazine'. In its December/January [1991-92] edition, he highlighted the problem of illegal immigrants in Australia. He stated that authorities acknowledge the existence of at least 78,000 illegals living in Australia, though others have put the figure at over 100,000. Of the 78,000 about 70 per cent were said to hold down jobs which would otherwise be available to locals and I per cent drew the dole under false names. "Four, out of ten of the illegals are suspected of doing underhand deals to avoid paying any income tax". Employers have also complained that the Commonwealth Employment Service "has sent them people for. jobs who have turned out to be illegal immigrants".

Bottom notes, "One illegal immigrant, a Fijian, James Shiram Sz'nda not only managed to live and work in Australia under a false name, but used four other aliases to milk the Social Security system to obtain multiple unemployment benefits totalling 884,000".

Most apprehended illegals did not use false names, but 21 per cent were found to have Medicare cards and five per cent managed to get government accommodation subsidies. "More than 10 per cent also have been able to use millions of dollars in taxpayers' money in free legal aid". Bottom states, "When authorities raided an Indonesian fishing boat, used to land illegals from Bangladesh on the north west coast of Western Australia in a highly organised scam, papers seized listed a number of Australian addresses and information on how best to use Australia's free legal aid system". Two of the eleven illegals had been deported previously.

Bottom notes that in Australia "some members of/he legal fraternity, as well as for charging immigrant advisory groups, specialise in exploiting loopholes in legislation and regulations on behalf of illegals. Authorities complain that most illegals lie to gain visas for temporary access, then seek out legal and civil liberty groups to campaign to be allowed to stay to achieve permanent residency status

Sixty per cent of those caught entering Australia on visitor or tourist visas stay on and go underground. With a boom in international tourism. the issue of short-term visas has exceeded 750,000 a year". Corruption within the Immigration Department and its overseas agencies has also been a problem.

Mail order bride agencies have also acted as fronts for illegal immigration. Bottom states. "Cases have been recorded of immigrants terminating marriages of convenience by divorce, then using their new status to sponsor a wife and family from overseas. According to immigration authorities up to 70 per cent of all visitors applying for permanent residency by marrying or claiming de-facto relationships with Australians are based on deliberate fraud ".

Australia is the only country in the world to "recognise a de-facto as legitimate for permanent residency on the same basis as a spouse", and this has been exploited by illegal immigrants.

The soft attitude of our Governments in general has, of course, also been exploited. Bottom points out that amnesties for illegal immigrants in the past have been failures and have encouraged more illegals to come to Australia in the hope of amnesties in the future. However, after the last amnesty in 1980 "legislation was enacted disallowing further proclamations and both major political parties agreed that there should not be any more".

This did not stop the rumours however, including one which was widely current in 1988, that illegals would be granted amnesty as part of the Bicentennial celebrations. It has been claimed that migration agents in other countries stoked this rumour and arranged for illegals, who believed the rumours, to land in Australia. Of course there was no amnesty.

The cost to taxpayers of all this is enormous and includes such fees as legal aid, detentions, investigations and deportations. But the bleeding heart industry, including large sections of the media, generally portray illegals as humanitarian cases.

In fact, immigration/refugee/passport rackets are a big and growing worldwide business and are increasingly connected to organised crime groups.

In the Sydney Morning Herald of 24 January 1992 there was an article entitled "Billion Dollar Backdoor Migrants" by Margaret Harris, which outlined the illegal immigration racket in China, thought to be controlled by Hong Kong Triad syndicates.

The organised illegal immigrant smugglers are known as "snakeheads". Harris stated:

"The most complicated and successful immigration syndicate uncovered so far was one that flew 23,000 mainland Chinese to Venezuela between March 1989 and February 1990. Most came from Guangdong province [as did Australia's Chinese boat-people] and paid between US $10,000 and $17,000 for the trip".

"Those who take this route often get the money by borrowing .. from the syndicate ….. then they' get to their destination they are put to work in restaurants or factories will their wages are used to repay the debt". This was the pattern with many of the so-called Chinese students who have come to Australia. Also some of those are believed to act as operatives for them in the new country.

The Sydney Morning Herald of 3 April this year reported that established Mafia groups in the US were in decline and Asian-American [and Latin American] gangs were increasing their power. The Asian gangs have "links to sophisticated Asia-based crime syndicates smuggling heroin and illegal immigrants, [and] these modern gangs seemed poised to move into America '5 criminal mainstream

Canada is another country with such problems. Reuters news agency reported on 27 May this year that the West Coast-based Chinatown Merchants Association "says Canada's Liberal Politicians, afraid of being labelled racist, appear unwilling to crack down on illegal Asian immigrants who are terrorising Vancouver's large Chinese community". Spokesman, Victor Cheng said that Asian criminals consider Canada a soft touch. He said, "The criminal community from South-East Asia know that if they come to Canada they will not get deported.". Canada has since announced plans to toughen its immigration requirements.

There is no doubt that similar problems exist in Australia.

As far as the high immigration intake generally goes and its specific effect on Australian workers, what of the ACTU, the supposed guardian of working conditions'? What was it doing while immigration numbers were being forced up? During the rise of multiculturalism and a strident brand of feminism, the ACTU found itself under attack by middle class, left-leaning academics for not taking these concerns to heart. The ACTU resisted these criticisms initially but gradually gave way.

People of the sort who gave these criticisms, rejecting the aspirations of their own class, but not the comforts of the lifestyle, have systematically taken over the Labor Party. The agenda of these people reflect their own aspirations and desire for status. They may still support workers in specific efforts to secure better working conditions, but their support for a high immigration rate means that wages and working conditions will invariably be undermined anyway.

Also, in other respects, such as lifestyle, they regard the Australian working class with derision, particularly the working class male. They realise that the working class is most resistant to their agenda, particularly the god of multiculturalism. Workers who regard themselves first and foremost as Australian have not only been denied a voice, but also their lifestyle and their value as human beings are being attacked by the organisations which are supposed to represent them. Bob Hawke, when Prime Minister, and other Labor politicians, were never slow to join these Volvo socialists in their attacks.

The old Australian working class will find more sympathy for them as people in the mainstream old Australian middle class, than they will amongst the trendy lefties and social poseurs who have insinuated themselves into their organisations.

So multiculturalism and feminism have become high on the Labor and ACTU agenda and distorted their more traditional working class concerns. The ACTU, in its support of multiculturalism and fear of being branded racist, did not feel as though it could publicly criticise the high immigration levels.

In fact, particularly through its Ethnic Liaison officer, Alan Matheson, the ACTU is extremely anxious to appease ethnic lobby groups and so very reluctant to confront family reunion. Mr Matheson has also gone so far as to suggest that there is little that can be done to prevent the worldwide movement of labour impacting upon Australia. This echoes the opinion of someone such as Michael Stutchbury of the Australian Financial Review who clearly believes in the "free" movement of labour, along with capital between nations, as though labour were just a commodity and local governments had no obligations to their own people.

The free movement of labour would mean that the labour export schemes which already widely operate in Asia would be introduced into Australia, with devastating effects on local wages and working conditions. Local workers would essentially be faced with modern day indentured labourers as competitors, particularly if China entered the market in a big way.

China has yet to embrace labour export schemes to any great extent, but has made significant moves in that direction. The Far Eastern Economic Review, in a 2 April article on migrant labour schemes noted that China officially classifies 200 million of its workers as "surplus". Were a portion of those to be released onto an open Australian labour market the effects can be imagined. The Chinese have already reportedly offered to send two million migrant workers to Japan, to the horror of the Japanese.

That Mr Matheson appears to be oblivious to such potential problems illustrates just how out of touch he is with the sentiments of the people he is supposed to represent -Australian workers. In fact, he acts as though he is little more than a captive of the multiculturalist industry and echoes their tactics in trying to take the high moral ground. He has called for "a positive strategy to combat racism" in Australia which no doubt involves more multiculturalist bureaucrats. He and the ACTU in general, as apologists for the policy of multiculturalism, have badly failed Australian workers on immigration.

Big business, real estate operators, property developers and the like, realising multiculturalism's effect on immigration had moved in behind it before the ACTU. They were free, with ethnic pressure groups, to push for ever higher immigration intakes without the traditional opposition of organised labour. As has been seen, big business favours immigration both because it has a downward effect on wages and working conditions, particularly where those people come from countries with no strong tradition of organised labour, and because, for developers and real estate operators, more people mean more development, regardless of the best interests of the country.

In April 1991 however, the ACT made a submission to Cabinet for a cut in immigration, though it was very careful not to target the family reunion category. The ACTU called for a cut in skilled immigration of 20.000. This was a short-term response to the recession, which had little impact upon the Hawke-led Government, but was at least a start. The long-term impact skilled immigration has on local training opportunities has to be considered. As long as employers know they can import skilled workers readily there is little incentive for them to train locals.

Apart from locals losing opportunities for training. our unthinking cargo cult commitment to skilled immigration has also meant an oversupply of skills in some areas. The 19901-91 Budget papers acknowledge that over-servicing by GP's is caused by the oversupply of doctors. The AMA recognises that this oversupply is largely caused by the immigration of doctors and is rightly concerned about it. Like engineers - whom we continue to import - we have too many doctors, at least in the city areas, where the overwhelming majority of immigrant doctors settle. This not only leads to over-servicing pressures. it denies local residents places in medical schools, which because of the oversupply have cut back on student numbers.

Yet the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Health. Mr Howe has been very slow to confront this problem. On the contrary, he initially threatened to flood the country with foreign doctors in his battle with the AMA over his proposed Medicare patient charge of $3.50, which was eventually revised downwards to $2.50 in the face of opposition from the Labor Caucus, and ultimately abandoned by Prime Minister Keating. This charge was proposed to offset the costs caused by over-servicing.

Mr Howe's threat to use immigration as a way of attempting to break the strength of local doctors was an echo of the tactic some employers down the years have advocated to break the strength of trade unions. The irony - and the dangerous precedent he would have set - seemed to have been completely lost on him. Mr Howe though subsequently acknowledged that some restrictions on foreign doctors may be necessary and since then has conceded that some form of entry restriction is necessary.

A paper drafted by the Director of the National Health Strategy, Ms Jenny Macklin, entitled "The Future of General Practice" and released on 15 March this year, took account of the problem of the immigration of doctors. This paper, among other things, called for the intake of overseas doctors to be restricted to 10 per cent of the output of Australian medical schools, which themselves would face a 10 per cent cut in student places. Mr Howe said he supported the thrust of the proposals.

The Macklin paper pointed out that over 400 foreign doctors per year were being allowed to settle permanently in Australia, which was more than five times the number of overseas doctors allowed to settle in Canada. a country with a much larger population.

On 16 May this year, Mr Howe announced that the number of overseas trained doctors allowed to settle in Australia would be reduced to 200 a year in 1992-93. This followed an announcement by Mr Hand that the qualification of medicine would be downgraded for immigration selection purposes. So there is some progress on that t'ront.

But the problems do not exist only with doctors. Note should be taken of the problems Australian shearers have been experiencing. The Australian of 9 September 1991 stated: "In Victoria, Western Australia and Queensland, Australian shearers are continually being outnumbered by their New' Zealand counterparts to a point where more than 42 per cent of the country's flock is shorn by foreign hanks'. The Australian Workers' Union, NSW Secretary. Mr Ernie Ecob remarked: "Over the last three and four months there has been a completely orchestrated, organised campaign by the National Farmers' Federation to have these foreign teams come in and do the work which has been traditionally done every year, for 20 years, by the locals. The large graziers are bending to the wishes of the NFF to ensure they get the work

The Australian reported that the itinerant NZ gangs were working for rates of about $90 per 100 sheep, compared with the award rate of $137. This is an example of the traditional attempts to undermine the wages and working conditions of locals by using cheap foreign labour. Further, much of the money earned by the itinerant workers is taken out of Australia. This trend has continued.

As the New Zealand gangs are predominantly Maori, the issue had become complicated by racial factors. It is interesting to note that the Office of Multicultural Affairs sponsored an episode of the ABC's "A Big Country" screened in 1991 in which the Maoris were portrayed as being better shearers than the locals. It is typical of OMA's propaganda techniques that locals are portrayed as inferior to migrants or foreign workers. By such insidious means OMA, a publicly funded body established by a Labor Government, is justifying the undercutting of the wages and working conditions of locals.

The shearers set up a camp outside Parliament House in May/June this year and put their case to the ALP Caucus. Among other things, the shearers called for work permits for New Zealanders. The Closer Economic Relations Agreement between Australia and New Zealand stipulates free movement of labour between the countries. Historically, Australia and New Zealand have had a special relationship and free movement between the countries has been part of the legacy. With changing times though, circumstances are different. A passport requirement was introduced for travel between countries in 1982 and clearly the case for work permits exists.

CER is basically a trade agreement and it does not follow at all that the freeing up of trade automatically means that labour should be able to move "freely" between nations if this is clearly shown, or is likely to disadvantage local workers. Yet in the Sydney Morning Herald of 30 May, a spokesman for the New Zealand Minister for External Affairs and Trade is reported as stating: "You can't have free trade between countries without a free labour market". This is apparently the New Zealand Government position.

This one example of the shearers being undercut by cheap New Zealand labour gives a small scale indication of what would occur were the present push for freer trade with Asia to be followed by free movement of labour. As already indicated, the consequences for local workers would be disastrous. Yet this prospect is seriously proposed by members of the academic and bureaucratic elites. Is this to be the subtext to the "free" trade push - namely the deliberate undermining of local wages and working conditions by the "free" movement of labour in order to minimise production costs? It becomes clear why the bible of high finance in the USA, the Wall Street Journal, preaches open borders in its editorial pages.

The Caucus Immigration Committee backed the shearers. The support of Committee Chairman, Andrew Theophanous. may be largely due to the fact that the professional ethnic lobby has always been against preferential treatment for New Zealanders and this was a good opportunity to drive the point home. At any rate the Caucus Committee recommendation called on the Minister for Immigration to "cancel forthwith those aspects of these arrangements, which allow New Zealanders automatic access to the Australian job market, so that uniform standards apply to … Australians and all eligible visitors seeking employment opportunities in Australia.

A watered-down resolution, which did not support work permits was later accepted by Caucus on 2 June. It called on the Government to "cancel those aspects of the travel arrangements that allow New Zealanders to 3to,.k authorise paying in income tax and in breach of awards ". This however was considerable progress and the shearers dismantled the camp, though they intend to continue pushing hard on the issue particularly in the lead up to its consideration by Cabinet. (Editor's Note: we will correct the errors in this paragraph shortly.)

One evocative part of the shearer's general protests was a meeting on Sunday 3 1 May of a group of about 100 shearers under the "Tree of Know1edge" in Barcaldine, Queensland, to support their fellow shearers in Canberra and call on the Government to support the resolution of the Caucus Immigration Committee. Under this tree in 1891 a group of shearers met following their disastrous defeat in strike action that year, and their resolutions led to the formation of the Australian Labor Party. It is an understatement to say that in recent years they have become disillusioned with the party their predecessors founded.

Whether doctors, shearers or carpet layers, Australian Governments and bureaucrats have an obligation to support locals first. If they don't, then nobody else will and if they don't, why should locals have any respect or regard for their Government?

Mr Howe also has a grand, but imprecise, plan for the cities, yet nowhere does he acknowledge the impact of immigration on the cities. Cut immigration and a great deal of the pressure on the cities would be eased. In fact, Mr Howe is all the development of new growth corridors, which combined with urban consolidation, he seems to believe is the answer.

It is clear from the example of doctors and shearers that immigration and itinerant foreign workers have had a negative impact on local employment. In a more general sense while it is true that there is no hard evidence that immigration increases overall unemployment in the long term. it can hardly be doubted that by increasing the labour pool it has a downward effect on wages and working conditions.

Wages in Australia are already among the lowest in the OECD, but select, well paid economists continually stress that lower and middle income real wages must fall while not suggesting that their own salaries or those of the bankers and executives many of them work for should be cut. In saying Australian real wages are too high they are not comparing us with OECD countries but Asian countries. It is part of their grand vision of Asianisation that real wages should fall to those of Asian countries, so we can properly compete and "integrate" with Asia.

The call for Australia to integrate itself with Asia is essentially a call to the majority to deliver itself into the hands of the economic imperialists. These economists, bankers and big business would benefit individually, but Australia would merely become a colonial satellite, a quarry and construction dump. with the bulk of the locals a cheap labour pool without unity or a sense of national purpose.

People who support Asianisation, high immigration and the "free" movement of labour should be very clear that in doing so, whatever noble motives they think they have, they are riding shotgun for those who would reverse all the gains in working conditions that the labour movement has fought for and which Australians in general take for granted. They are also acting as agents for the social disintegration of our country.

In the absence of opposition to immigration by bodies such as the ACTU, and with the general hysteria surrounding the subject, organised grassroots opposition to immigration, despite general public discontent, was slow in coming. It began while Senator Ray was Minister. Groups formed opposed to Australia's high immigration rate for environmental and economic reasons. Individuals, such as Dr Bob Birrell. had for many years stressed the problems of high population growth. When Bob Hawke first entered Parliament in 1980, it was Dr Birrell he contacted and asked to advise him on immigration matters! How things change.

In 1984 Dr Birrell edited a book - "Populate and Perish?" - backed by the Australian Conservation Foundation. Sections of the ACF attempted to block publication, because its release coincided with the Blainey furore, but it went ahead. Under the ACF leadership of Executive Director, Phillip Toyne, and President, Peter Garret though, population levels and particularly immigration policy, were not openly criticised. While Mr Hawke was Prime Minister there was clearly an understanding that the ACF would not rock the boat on such issues, in return for political favours.

In some cases, members of the ACF executive seemed to have no understanding of population issues at all, or even knowledge of submissions on the issue put forward in the name of the organisation. albeit not by members of the executive. The President, Peter Garrett, for all his rock star celebrity, went so far as to say: "immigration is "not an issue at all for ACF", in spite of the fact that high immigration levels were very much a concern in the ACF submission to the Fitzgerald Inquiry. Further, the ACF in the I 970~s repeatedly criticised immigration intakes.

Under the Hawke Government, while the dominant sections of the conservation movement avoided one of the major issues confronting the environment, namely the effects of our very high rate of urban population growth, they alienated potential allies with the hysteria and the hyperbole of their approach to other issues. The problems of the environment are of genuine concern to the majority of the general public. but there is a strong risk they will become antagonistic if this approach continues.

A power struggle arose within the ACF between those who wanted to criticise immi2ration levels and those, such as the leadership, who want the issue suppressed in line with the general consensus of the elites. Finally, by late 1991, Phillip Toyne garnered the courage to take a stand on population. The ACF now call for a population policy and recommends in its draft policy that immigration should be set at 60,000 per annum.

The change of attitude of the executive is to be welcomed, but it must be emphasised that the leadership of the ACF avoided the hard struggles. When it took courage to confront the issue, they went missing. In fact Phillip Toyne joined in the smear tactics against those who did have the courage to confront the issue within his own organisation.

Environmental groups opposed to high immigration, which did have the courage to confront the issue when it was taboo, included the Canberra-based Australians for an Ecologically Sustainable Population [AESP] and the Melbourne-based Australians Against Further Immigration [AAFI], both formed in 1988. These groups were the major groups to take a public stance against high immigration.

The first group, which includes poets Mark O'Connor and Judith Wright, concentrates strongly on environmental arguments for a significant cut in immigration as part of an overall population policy, though they also use economic arguments. AESP has no clear policy on multiculturalism. Some members are opposed to the policy and others are not and are hopeful that immigration can be cut significantly, while keeping the policy of multiculturalism in place.

Recently elected President, Jenny MacLeod, who also works for the Leader of the Democrats, Senator Coulter and frequently has letters to the editor published in newspapers, stated in a letter to The Australian of 16 March 1992 that "It may not be necessary to dismantle multiculturalism ..... in order to achieve an immigration policy in the national interest". There are some members of AESP however who regard this belief as deluded.

Australians Against Further Immigration on the other hand are strongly opposed to the policy' of multiculturalism and see it as fundamental to confront the policy in order to bring immigration policy under control. AAFI argues on environmental, economic and social grounds for cutting immigration to replacement levels, and the development of a more independent Australian outlook. Its' members include Dr Bob Birrell, Dr Katharine Betts, Denis McCormack and founders Dr Rod Spencer and his wife Robyn.

Others. such as Stephen Joske, formerly of the Legislative Research Service of the Federal Parliamentary Library, specifically dealt with the economic cost of immigration. His 1989 paper "The Economics of Immigration; Who Benefits?" claimed that the immigration intake was adding as much as $8 billion a year to the current account deficit and was distorting the economy. Australian savings, instead of being invested in productive capital were being directed into building unproductive housing and infrastructure to accommodate the population increase brought about by immigration.

Further, there were not enough savings in Australia to cover the cost, so we borrowed overseas, so adding the $8 billion to the current account deficit. Australians were not only subsidising an immigration intake they clearly did not want, but the intake was pushing the country further into debt. Mr Joske's paper was met with considerable hostility by the BIR and Senator Ray, and he was subject to an emotive and unfounded attack by Dr Neville Norman, author of the CEDA report.

Dr Norman also launched an intemperate attack on a critic of the CEDA report. Mr Brian Parmenter. Mr Parmenter, in his Presidential address to the Victorian Branch of the Economics Society in 1989, had cast serious doubts on Dr Norman's conceptual approach in the CEDA report. Most economists, including those in the Federal Treasury, now agree that immigration worsens the current account deficit.

This is quite apart from the Social Security payments which have been paid out to the large number of immigrants who have entered Australia in the last few years and have been unable to find jobs, particularly those from non-English speaking backgrounds.

The paper "Immigration and the Recession" by Dr Bob Birrell released on July 1, 1991 and based on Australian Bureau of Statistics figures, stated that the average unemployment rate for migrants from non-English speaking backgrounds who had arrived since 1986 was 21.6 per cent. For those arriving since January 1990 the rate was 44 per cent. Dr Birrell calculated that if the average level of unemployed from non-English speaking backgrounds of 48,000 was sustained over 1991-92 and they all received unemployment benefits at the single rate it would cost Australia $340 million.

Even in the skilled area, Australia was bringing in people as engineers when there was an oversupply of engineers. These people were reluctant to look for work outside their areas of expertise and so ended up unemployed.

Further the unskilled migrants who did find jobs in manufacturing were directly competing with locals for scarce positions. Dr Birrell asked; "Why then is the Government continuing with a substantial migration intake, most of whom will add directly to the dole bill or indirectly by taking up jobs locals could have filled?"

The BIR subsequently attempted to debunk Dr Birrell's findings. It commissioned a paper entitled "Immigrants and the Social Security System" by Peter Whiteford of the Social Policy Research Centre of the University of NSW. This paper was one of six delivered at the BIR's Social Impact of Immigration Conference at Macquarie University in September 1991.

Much of the media subsequently reported this document as though it was fact. The document however, was seriously flawed as pointed out in a critique by Stephen Rimmer. Mr Rimmer noted that Mr Whiteford's paper "ignored important characteristics of migrants; these include English language ability - or the lack of it - and educational and occupational skills". Definitions were also changed in the Whiteford paper to suit the purpose. Mr Rimmer notes: "changing the use definitions then results are not consistent with a hypothesis represents an unscientific misuse of statistical methods, which "could not be tolerated in any university in Australia".

Mr Rimmer concluded Mr Whiteford's paper did nothing to undermine the conclusions of Dr Birrell's paper. The BIR issued yet another report which, while acknowledging the high unemployment rate of NESB migrants, tried to twist the argument to claim that this was because of workplace discrimination. The Australian Chamber of Manufacturing called this report, "a very illogical, soft review, which doesn't prove anything" and remarked that as the Government entices such migrants. training them was the Government's responsibility. It was not the role of employers to train migrants in the basics they needed to adapt to this country. Neither BIR report stands up to scrutiny.

Dr Birrell's original findings were further supported by the facts provided by the Department of Finance in October 1991 in response to a question put by the Opposition Shadow Minister for Social Security, Senator Alston. Senator Alston had asked for figures on the full year cost of the Social Security payout to migrants of less than one year's residence in Australia. The Department of Finance calculated that the payout for these migrants was $251 million. The BIR report, which aimed to downplay such payments, was clearly misleading. A further Department of Finance document estimated the major recurrent Commonwealth costs incurred in the first twelve months after migrant arrival, as at June 1991, as $378 million. This includes other Social Security benefits, health and language training courses. This document was dated 17 September 1991.

In fact, the quality of some of the work the BIR had commissioned is truly appalling. The worst example so far is probably "Immigration, Ethnic Conflicts and Social Cohesion" by Cope, Castles and Kalantzis from the Centre for Multicultural Studies, University of Wollongong, a paper which was also delivered at the September conference.

This is no more than a bigoted attack on "old" Australians, the very group which most heavily subsidises the writers. Ms Kalantzis has since joined the University of Technology in Sydney which strongly promotes the policy of multiculturalism.

At any rate, during Senator Ray's period as Minister, AESP and AAFI, as well as other individuals. called for a rational and open debate on immigration. Through efforts of people such as these, more people began to realise just how high Australia's immigration was; how under the mantle of anti-racism and deliberate lack of scrutiny and intimidation of critics. the immigration intake had steadily climbed since 1984.

In an article in the "Current Affairs Bulletin" in May 1989, the demographer, Dr Christabel Young of the ANU pointed out that Australia's immigration intake was two or three times per capita the immigration intake of Canada or the US. Largely because of an immigration rate at the time of upwards of 150,000 per annum. Australia had the highest rate of population growth in the developed world. She said that if the growth rate continued, Australia would double its population in a bit over 40 years.

Most of the immigration intake settled in major cities, so massive problems of congestion and pollution would eventuate. The quality of life of all would suffer. The effect of the immigration policy on urban infrastructure costs was underlined in a report delivered in March 1991 by the Economic Planning Advisory Council, entitled "Urban and Regional Trends and Issues". The report also notes. "It would seem indisputable that high level of immigration have contributed to the very high growth in housing prices in Sydney in recent years

The great bulk of immigrants settle disproportionately in Sydney and Melbourne. and attempts to decentralise the intake have been historic failures. Where outflow from these cities occurs it is largely by longer-term residents - who can no longer afford the price of living - to other cities. In the unlikely event that immigration decentralisation programmes were seriously implemented in the future, there is no indication that they would be any more successful than in the past. At any rate, none worth the name are in place. This means that in considering the impact of the immigration intake it is simplistic in the extreme to point to the large size of the Australian land mass to justify a large intake, as for example was done in the Catholic Social Justice document "I am a Stranger, Will You Welcome Me?", which was released last year.

Quite apart from the fact that our land mass is largely infertile, it is the capacity of major cities to cope with immigration which must be considered, as that is where immigration impacts. The so-called solution of urban consolidation not only implies a lower quality of life for existing residents in cities, it does not effectively bring down the price of housing, one of the things its proponents, particularly those on the left wing of the ALP, claim it will do.

Local Councils are also strongly resisting urban consolidation, And. as was indicated in an article in the November 1991 edition of "The Independent .Monthly" by A.N. Maiden, in Sydney's experience, "in inner suburban areas urban consolidation is perversely being achieved at the expense of low and moderate-cost rental accommodation". In North Sydney the accommodation mix "increasingly excludes low-to-moderate income owners and virtually all first home buyers".

The article goes on to state: "It is difficult to escape the conclusion that urban consolidation is, at best, a holding operation - a programme of apparent action that can be pursued with apparent vigour until environmental and economic constraint at the fringes impose a market-dominated price solution to Sydney's and .Melbourne's housing crisis. And that solution will be to. exclude the population that cannot a/!(.)'.d soaring home prices. For an urban consolidation programme to achieve anything eA~e will require draconian changes to the lifestyle that generations of all Australians have come to regard as their birthright".

Yet, as Dr Birrell states in his article in the book "Immigration, Population and Sustainable Environments'; "Though officialdom rarely acknowledges it, the message is that in their scale of values the well-being of the next generation of Australians living in Sydney and Melbourne is less important than the maintenance of high immigration". It is becoming increasingly obvious that mass immigration is a liability.

There have also been contentions that immigration can overcome the problem of an aging population, and that without immigration our population would decline. These contentions have been demolished by th