It is inevitable is that thinking voters will desert the old left right dichotomy of the industrial era and start to vote on the basis of long term marshalling of resources in the interests of future generations and the country, generally.

From a Labor dominated Canberra, the view is somewhat different. There, an increasingly shrill and desparate Liberal opposition scores points by railing against a Labor Green Coalition. As the Labor Left attempts to reclaim the progressive tag, the Liberals can successfully use that as a wedge to paint the Greens as driving the government agenda.

The opposite will happen in the Liberal led states. WA, Vic and soon NSW will get on with destroying the long term future of those states, while shoring up their immediate cash flow and isolate Labor as the incompetent past. The Greens will continue to present themselves as the rational voice of an alternative future and Labor will have no where to go.

Whether the Liberal parties’ desperation reaches such a fever pitch that it escapes human hearing and disappears in a pouffe of smoke, or the Labor party becomes so earnest it cannot ever finish a sentence for the endless sops it makes to the mythical left, the culturally correct as well as the aspirational worker is irrelevant.

What happens now is that the old, industrial parties blend, somehow, while the Greens work out how to manage a coalition of deep Green environmentalists, socialist watermelons, swinging voters who care and the increasingly important blue green pragmatists. That coalition will gradually come to represent the minority.

As well as managing the increasingly complex agenda of a broad politically party, The Greens have to work out how to manage the grass roots. A century ago the ALP was working with the unions and the catholic church to build a network of workers clubs, adult education institutes, railway institutes and so on in preparation for attaining government.

So far, The Greens have snubbed their nose at the environmental activist groups that spawned them. It is now time to grow up and harness the energy of that Green Army rather than neurotically attempting to distance itself from it.

The genius of the ALP a century ago was to establish a national conference that allowed the active and the political wings of the party to work together separately. So far, the Greens have failed to even recognise this problem let alone solve it. Thoughtful men on the periphery, like Ian Lowe and Clive Hamilton have attempted, unsuccessfully so far, to grapple with it, but without much success.

With hundreds of councillors, decades of state parliamentarians and seven Federal parliamentarians, this Green coalition has enough clout now to actually nail this thing. The challenge is to maintain the vision through the long tedious process of winning the numbers. But that is the nature of politics.

Ghandi and Mandela have acquired religious status because it is belief that informs that wait. It is the presence of greater knowledge that allows a little man in a loin cloth to cause armies to cower and a shackled man in pyjamas to cause his captors to snap to attention as he shuffles up the stone steps from his dungeon.

The Liberals denial of preferences to the Greens in the Victorian elections this weekend just gone is more grist to that mythical mill. The Greens simply have to recognise it.

Survey shows migration not births driving growth

Updated 5 hours 31 minutes ago

Survey: migration is responsible for nearly two-thirds of the overall population growth. (ABC News: Drew Hill)

• Related Story: No rush on population policies: Burke
• Related Story: Dick Smith backs sustainable population push
• Related Story: Gillard shuts door on ‘big Australia’

The latest nationwide survey of social trends has found that migration, rather than child birth, is driving Australia’s population increase.

Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) figures show that despite recent increases in the fertility rate, migration is responsible for nearly two-thirds of the overall population growth.

The survey also points to changes at work and home, finding that the number of under-employed people is outstripping the number of unemployed, while the number of children in child care is increasing.

The rate of people wanting to work more hours than they already are has risen from about 6 per cent to nearly 8 per cent while the proportion of children in child care has risen from 17 to 22 per cent over the last decade.

The environment and personal safety also rank highly among the public’s most pressing concerns.

Seven out of 10 Australians are worried about climate change while one in four worry about their personal safety enough to avoid things like using public transport or walking in their neighbourhood after dark.

Tags: community-and-society, family-and-children, child-care, immigration, population-and-demographics, unemployment, children, work, australia

First posted 5 hours 40 minutes ago

Mr Metcalfe said Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who has shifted away from her predecessor’s embrace of a ‘big Australia’ toward ‘balanced’ sustainable population growth, had underlined the importance of skilled migration.

Ms Gillard said on the weekend she does not want to see businesses held back because they can’t access the skilled workers they need.

But she also doesn’t want to see areas of Australia suffering high youth unemployment because there are no jobs for local workers.

Treasury earlier this year forecast Australia’s population to reach 35.9 million by 2050, from a current 22 million, saying immigration would be a big contributor.

Meanwhile, opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison told the summit population growth was ‘getting out of hand’.

‘Population growth cannot be a lazy substitute for participation and productivity in our economy,’ he said.

‘It needs to be brought under control and there needs to be policies to keep the population under control.

‘The prime minister must now answer her own question.

‘How many Australians will there be under Labor’s policies, what will be the immigration intake under her policies and where will she make the cuts?’

However, NSW Premier Kristina Keneally said there was room for growth in the nation’s most populous state, particularly in regional centres.

But Sydney’s population was set to continue to grow no matter what.

‘Even if we stopped all movement into Sydney, there will still be population increases of some 70 per cent,’ Ms Keneally told reporters in Sydney.

‘For Sydney, we do join with the prime minister with that desire to have sustainable cities.’

In its 2010/11 budget, the government said the size of the migration program would be maintained in the new financial year at 168,700 places.

But the mix would change with increases to skilled migration and reductions to family migration.

Earlier on Monday, sociologist Katharine Betts told the population summit the level of migration had little impact on the average age of the population.

‘Even large migrant intakes don’t make much of a difference to the average age of the population at all,’ said Dr Betts, who is associate professor of sociology at Melbourne’s Swinburne University of Technology.

However, she also noted a recent Australian survey of social attitudes had found 72 per cent of Australians thought the country did not need more migrants.