kingfishbig

You haven't demonstrated any link - just repeated your unfounded assertion. You even mention Japan which has hardly any immigration. How come it's not an international pariah? How come things are so good on the ground despite it's falling population, eg excellent infrastructure, unemployment at 2.4%, respectable per capita GDP growth?

The cost of an ageing The cost of an ageing population are trivial and can easily be met by the current generation. Immigration is certainly no cure for the simple reason that immigrants will age too. It's just kicking the can down the road with the can getting bigger. And the effect on our age structure is small as well as temporary. Our Productivity Commission has been saying this for years. It's better just to deal with it eg encourage saving, enable people to work longer if they wish. Decentralisation is a pipe dream we have been talking about for a 100 years. Our Treasury has said it's a bad idea. The pull factors of the cities for migrants are too strong. PS 100K for an apprentice sounds far fetched. But the main factor was the government withdrawing it's subsidy. Anyway these days it's stagnant wages that are the problem ..

You keep asserting things with no evidence (and ignore evidence when it is provided). Without immigration we will have less unemployment. It's just basic supply and demand. Why would we have no money to fund health and education? It would be easier to fund without having to keep up with population growth. And why do you keep conflating immigration with foreign investment when they are two different things.

Well I am using empirical evidence, ie numbers. If you are accusing me of wanting an immigration rate that benefits our existing population then yes guilty as charged. Your pejoratives on the other hand don't really stand up. Eg if you support the current rate but I say we should bring in a million a year then does that make you entitled , arrogant , etc? And you have got your numbers mixed up. The 70,000 was the average for the 20th century and you have applied it to 1901. And I think the 2019 NOM figure was at least 240,000 so that gives you 1% as the immigration rate (so you have missed a zero). It has been around 1% for the last 15 years. And absolute no's matter. Don't you realise that if our population rate as a % stays the same it will become exponential? Eg we will have 340 million people by 2200!

Post federation means just that - from 1901 to the recent past. I mentioned Japan as well which you ignored. Or you could just look at a graph of GDP per capita growth vs population growth for all OECD countries and you will find that there is no correlation.

Numbers aren't entitled, arrogant, racist or any other pejorative you want to throw at me 2% of infrastructure has to be replaced every year due to age, wear and tear. So if you grow the population by 2% a year then you double the infrastructure bill. So population growth comes at a cost. It's no wonder that every new road is a toll road these days or that our infrastructure is simply not keeping up due to underspending. The GFC was more a northern hemisphere thing as we were fortunate not to have all the toxic sub prime debt that other countries did. And our economic growth record is an illusion as most of it (especially the last 15 years) has come from dumb population growth. Indeed we have had several per capita recession in the past 30 years. And it's per capita growth which matters in terms of standard of living. PS: I don't know where you got the idea that our per capita immigration is very low. Actually it's one of the highest and on top of a relatively healthy birth rate at that.

Well if you are saying immigration worked well in the past what's wrong with returning it to the same level? The average post Federation level was around 70,000 pa - a big difference to the 200,000 plus of the past 15 or so years which is plainly not working. I'm not sure why you are conflating foreign investment with immigration either - they are different things. Indeed immigrants are no money tree given the infrastructure deficit they create. Instead of spending 10's of billions a year just to stand still in the face of population growth we could be spending more on community services. And there is no positive link between population growth and prosperity. If that was all there was to it then India would have a better standard of living than us And look at how good things are on the ground in Japan with it's falling population. Also how can you have endless population growth in a finite country? We are already having problems with our water supply and we will outgrow our food surplus by the end of the century and will have to be a net importer in a resource constrained World.

Unfortunately the screening is not that good. There is evidence of widespread fraud in the skilled program - as many as 9 in 10: https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/leak-shows-widespread-visa-rorting-20140807-jke77 Also even on the dubious assumption they all get jobs, bringing in that many each year creates an infrastructure deficit of billions of dollars are year and it's mainly up to the existing population to pay for it.

Most immigrants are working below their skill level and even the primary skilled stream has higher unemployment than locals. And we have the one of the least skills shortages in the World. All that would happen with immigration would be that we would better utilise our own workforce given that we have 14% underutilisation. An no one is talking about no immigration. About 60K pa NOM would be enough to stabilise the population. The pre Covid NOM of 250K or so was giving us the highest population growth in the developed World (depending on how you count it). Never before have we run mass immigration into a slack labour market - it has always been would back to suit the conditions.

Argentina relied on it's primary industry too. It also had a population boom. Our fixed mineral wealth just gets diluted as the population gets bigger.

That can't be taken for granted. Look what happened to Argentina. It was one of the top ten richest countries in the World early last century, just behind Australia: https://www.businessinsider.com.au/the-tragedy-of-argentina-a-century-of-decline-2014-2?r=US&IR=T

I don't know where you get your figures from .It was substantially lower in the US and the UK (by about 20%) and they were more affected by the GFC and didn't have a mining boom. Japan with it's falling population had 2.4% unemployment. And I mentioned there is a lot of underemployment, in fact our underutilisation rate is a whopping 14%

It doesn't cancel out the other negatives I mentioned. And that's really false wealth when you consider that we also have the 2nd highest household debt in the World and that the IMF and OECD say that this is a threat to our economic stability. It also means we have a whole generation locked out of owning a home. All the mortgage debt is a drag on consumer spending too (and we have the double whammy of stagnant wages).

Well the overcrowding comes into it way way of Sydney growing by 100,000 people per year. Even Infrastructure Australia says we can't build our way out of this and there will be more congestion and loss of amenity. The building and planning industry aren't directly causing this but rule No 1 for these industries is to promote the population Ponzi whenever possible. PS: how do most of us benefit from this growth? For a start we are here because we like fishing and this sort of population growth and what goes with it is unambiguously bad for the environment. Aside from the congestion I have already mentioned it gives us stagnant wages, high underemployment, infrastructure deficit and unaffordable housing. The Productivity Commission 2006 says that the only people who benefit from high immigration/ population growth are the immigrants themselves and the big owners of capital and that the rest of us will be worse off.

Well it's a moot point. Unless you can tell me that there is a car space for every unit owner who drives then there will be more cars parked on the street. Even medium density means more cars parked on the street with some of the latest planning regulations. You might have 5 adults living in a household for instance and only one car space required. And that's only the half of it. Cramming thousands of extra people into a small area just means more congestion and loss of amenity under all plausible build out strategies.

Well it used to be fantastic. The green, liveable city of 20 years ago is rapidly disappearing.

That's what I have now, but nowhere in Sydney is safe with the Population Ponzi being forced on us. Now my council had approved high and medium rise in my area to house another 25,000 people. Of course with not enough parking spaces so the streets will be filled with cars. Even with a driveway it will mean it will be hard to have enough turning room to get the boat in and out.

I like the look of the snap and cord. Did that come with the radio or did you buy it separately? An advantage of handled is that you can clip it to your lifejacket when fishing alone.

They all work but not all the time. I have had success with the Tackleback model, which slides down the line while attached to a cord, but you must have a snap in the rig. It's a bit hard to operate on your own at times. And if there is something in the snag that stops it sliding down it won't work.

There is a fake Garmin website too. When you try to load a map update they will say there are viruses or trojans on your computer and ask for money to fix it.

Yes I had a AU2 as well. I traded it in for an FG XR6. I didn't get the turbo as I want to keep my drivers licence.

It's a shame they are not locally made now. My last 3 cars have been Falcons. Actually they are very good for towing and less costly to buy and maintain than a 4wd. But it's not a very good analogy as 4s vs 2s is a matter of very different technologies.

Well it is a boating thread and given the financial and safety implications of choosing a new motor why would you think it's not a worthy topic? I don't about 'emotion' and 'garbage' either. Unless you have some information I haven't seen no one knows the relative failure rate of DI 2 strokes vs 4 strokes or why Etec's and Opti's have ceased production. The performance characteristics are more clear cut however.

There would still be a market for carby 2 strokes if the government hadn't banned them. They were a good choice for tinnies and entry level boating with their low weight/ good power to weight ratio as well as for repowering old boats. Also the price of new motors is getting out of hand. I was quoted nearly 15K fitted for a 90 hp 4 stroke and it may not have performed well on my old fiberglass boat. I ended a getting a hardy used carby 2 stroke for 5K As to new motors I wonder what the relative failure rates really are? If you look at some of the product review sites there are numerous reviews of people having a terrible time with their 4 strokes due to a variety of mechanical and electrical problems. Also terminal corrosion problems on motors that weren't that old. And I have heard a lot of good things about the Optimax from mechanics and owners - 'sound as the pound' etc.

I don't see what's wrong with the windscreen you have now. It appears to have a middle door already. Why not just put clears on top and a more substantial bimini with side clears?