Soaring house prices and overcrowded cities: It’s official – Australians don’t want any more immigrants

Australian support for immigrants has plummeted amid soaring house prices and overcrowded cities.

Just 30.4 per cent of Australians now believe the country needs more people, according to a poll by the Australian National University (ANU).

This was compared to 69.6 per cent who felt Australia did not need more people, a dramatic increase since a similar poll was done in 2010.

According to a report on the figures most Australians were supportive of cultural diversity but did not want population growth to come at the expense of the environment.

'Crowding and housing affordability have become key issues,' the report stated.

Both the Liberal and Labor parties are developing their own stance and policies on immigration, but the new findings suggest only three in every 10 people who participated believe Australia has room for more people.

Questions asked were similar to those asked in the 2010 survey in an attempt to keep results as even as possible.

The 2010 survey found 45 per cent of participants were supportive of population growth.

Male support has now fallen to 38.4 per cent, while female support is even lower at 28.2 per cent.

‘The Australian population is now a little over 25 million… Do you think Australia needs more people?,' was one question participants were asked to answer.  

Australia's population growth is the largest it has experienced since colonisation. 

In 1981 the Australian population was around 14.9 million people. By June 2018 it had reached 25.0 million, with the last five million of that growth occurring since December 2004.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison is expected to lower his intake of immigrants from 2019-2020 from 190,000 to 160,000. This will be confirmed when the April budget is released.

Mr Morrison's decision - should he go ahead with it - reflects the ANU findings, in which the least supportive of increased immigration was coalition voters.

Greens were found to be the most supportive, though support was still below 50 per cent.

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Teachers won't be allowed to take classes if they fail English and maths exams

Teachers will soon have to pass a literacy and numeracy test to prove they can read, write and solve maths problems before they're allowed in the classroom.

All aspiring teachers in Australia will have to take the formal exam from next year and must pass it within three attempts.

In Victoria, about five per cent of working teachers failed or were yet to sit the test, but were allowed to remain in the classroom provided they passed within two years.

But the state government announced this week that from this month, all aspiring teachers who don't pass the test won't be registered.

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Ports and mine targeted by fat cat unionists

Wharfies earning up to $150,000 a year for working 33 hours a week will launch industrial action at Hutchison Ports Australia this week, condemning the loss-­making stevedore’s bid to cut their pay and conditions as the “most severe attack on waterfront conditions in a generation”.

The industrial action at Hutchison, which fears the union bans could escalate into strikes disrupting operations at inter­national container terminals in Sydney and Brisbane, came as Construction Forestry Maritime Mining and Energy Union members at a NSW coalmine voted yesterday to extend a seven-day strike by a further week.

Employers last night expressed concern at the industrial action by different divisions of the CFMEU, with Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive James Pearson ­insisting strikes should be a last resort.

“The sight of Australia’s mega-union, the CFMEU, flexing its industrial muscle to hold up ports and shut down mines is a sharp ­reminder of why we need workplace laws that encourage co-­operation, not conflict in the workplace,’’ Mr Pearson said.

“Big unions are putting pressure on the Labor Party to make big changes to workplace rules to give themselves even more power. That’s a sobering prospect with an election just around the corner.”

Hutchison said wharfies at its Port Botany international container terminal in Sydney earned on average $150,000 a year with superannuation and Port of Brisbane workers received $130,000 annually for an average working week of 30 to 33 hours.

Employees get 11 weeks off a year — five weeks’ annual leave and an extra rostered week off every eight weeks, up to 13 days’ sick leave, and 12 per cent ­superannuation.

The company is seeking to slash pay rates by 10 per cent followed by a 12-month wage freeze; reduce the superannuation contribution to 9.5 per cent; and cut sick leave, redundancy and long service entitlements.

Maritime union assistant nat­ional secretary Warren Smith said workers would start imposing a range of work bans from Thursday, including bans on overtime and higher duties. The Maritime Union of Australia became part of the CFMEU last year.

“Our members refuse to sit back and watch as four decades of hard-won conditions are stripped away by a greedy multinational whose only concern is maximising its own profits,’’ he said.

“We will not accept an agreement that rips us off and reduces our standard of living, and the MUA is committed to using every industrial and legal tool at our disposal in our fight to protect con­ditions and safety standards on the waterfront.

“The actions of Hutchison Ports highlight exactly why the Australian union movement has launched the Change the Rules campaign, to challenge the ­actions of big corporations who are increasingly using the broken workplace laws to attack the conditions of working people.”

Hutchison is trying to delay the action, and will seek orders from the Fair Work Commission ­tomorrow to require the union to give five days’ notice before it can take the industrial action.

MUA members work on average 30 to 33 hours a week across a year, an arrangement agreed to by the company in exchange for greater automation. Hutchison wants workers to be able to work 35-42 hours a week.

“HPA continues to negotiate in good faith with the union, but the company’s position remains that it needs a more flexible workforce to improve its economic position and keep people employed,” a company spokesman said.

The productivity impact on the company’s operations will not be known until the bans starts, but Hutchison will look at ­diverting work to other stevedores if necessary.

Talks between the company and union officials are scheduled this week and Mr Smith said the workers did not intend to escalate bans into strikes before the ­resumption of talks

The stoush came as the CFMEU said workers at the Wollongong Coal-owned Wongawilli Colliery had decided to stay out for a further week after starting a seven-day strike this morning.

The union members are seeking to pressure labour-hire firm CAS Mine Services to bring the pay of its fully casualised workforce into line with union members in nearby mines.

CFMEU mining and energy southwestern district vice-president Bob Timbs said the anger of workers on the picket outside the colliery was directed at Wollongong Coal owner Jindal Steel and Power. He said the India-based company was profiting from Australian resources while hiding from their responsibility to Australian workers. “These workers are not casuals and should be treated as the ­permanent employees they are,’’ he said.

“Wongawilli mine is a classic labour-hire rip-off. Across mining and the broader workforce, ­employers outsource workers to labour-hire companies to drive down wages and conditions.”

Mr Timbs said Wongawilli miners worked in some of the most difficult underground coalmining conditions in the region.

“They are not asking for anything extravagant — they simply want conditions that are basically in line with the region,’’ he said.

Union member Marty Childs, who was on the picket, said the workers deserved “fairer pay”.

“We should be on par with the industry,’’ he said. “I am sick of casual contractors being paid less than a permanent worker.”

CAS, which the union accused of unlawfully employing its entire 100-strong workforce as casuals, said last week it would “go broke” if it had to fund a 10 per cent pay-rise claim that it said would wipe out its operating margins.

The strike is the latest flashpoint in the battle between employers and unions in the wake of last year’s precedent-setting court ruling on casuals, with labour-hire firms hit with union claims and class actions over their allegedly unlawful use of casuals in the ­mining industry.

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An incredibly crooked cop

How did she think she could get away with taking people's homes?  People tend to be strongly attached to their homes.  She's got to be a mental case

A Victorian Police officer, who the state's anti-corruption watchdog alleges used her police connections to attempt to take possession of six properties, has appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court.

Court documents allege she went to one council office in her police uniform to get details of a property's owner
Rosa Catherine Rossi, from the Geelong suburb of Corio, has been charged with 20 separate offences by the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC).

They include deceptively and dishonestly trying to gain property, fraudulently claiming welfare payments, stealing, accessing the police database for her own gain, and falsifying documents.

Documents from the court allege she tried to claim ownership of three rural properties in the Western District as well as three suburban Melbourne properties in Chadstone, Malvern East and Brooklyn.

At Willaura, south of Ararat, she is alleged to have targeted the owners of three homes, changing the locks on the properties and submitting false change-of-address documents to the Ararat Rural City Council.

Ms Rossi is also charged with providing false documents in order to secure a loan with the Commonwealth Bank for a property in the town.

Deceased estate claim

At Malvern East, IBAC alleges Ms Rossi told a locksmith the property was a deceased estate in order to convince them to change the locks.

Court documents allege she went to the police station in Footscray and looked up the name and contact details of the owner of that property on the internal LEAP database.

She also lodged a false change-of-address form to the Stonnington City Council, according to the charge sheets.

For the Brooklyn property, court documents claim she went to Hobson's Bay City Council in her police uniform to get details of the property's owner and also submitted a false change-of-address notice.

IBAC investigators also allege she:

set up a fake not-for-profit organisation called Sweet Georgia Pty Ltd;

falsely claimed rental assistance from Centrelink;

falsified statutory declarations about who she was and where she lived.

Ms Rossi will return to court in March

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 Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here