Kevin Rudd's 'insane' proposal

In an article at On line Opinion, Joel Butler points out that Kevin Rudd's proposal to create an EU-like "Asia-Pacific community" would inevitably lead to open immigration and the end of the Australian nation as we know it.

He writes:

Kevin Rudd’s proposal to implement an European Union-like organisation in the Asia-Pacific region is nothing short of insane. The conditions prevailing in Europe in the 1950s when integration was first proposed, or even now that it has been more fully achieved, and those in the Asia Pacific region are so different that even the suggestion that a similar integrative structure might work is simply ludicrous.

One of the basic structural processes operative in the EU is the free movement of people within the EU’s member countries. In this day and age, free movement of people is a necessary underpinning for “free trade” since - especially for countries like Australia - the trade in services which are delivered by people are more and more important than the trade in goods.

A European Union based model in the Asia Pacific region that allows free trade by allowing the free movement of people between member states would mean the end of Australia as we know it. It would be completely and utterly unworkable because it would see mass-migration of overseas workers into Australia at a level so completely unmanageable as to lead to the breakdown of the economy and the social infrastructure.

If this sounds a little extreme - that I am suggesting an “end of the world as we know it” scenario - it is because the scheme would lead to just that.

Although Butler's article contains no mention of the profound ethnocultural effects open immigration would have on Australia, it is clear that open borders with Asian countries would result in the prompt and complete submergence of our current population by Asian peoples, transforming our historically European-majority nation into an extension of Asia in the blink of an eye. Our nation would cease to exist in any recognisable form. It would not be the end of the world for the rest of the planet's inhabitants, but it would certainly be a shocking and grotesque act of national suicide on Australia's behalf.

See also:

Rudd's plan to cede Australian sovereignty

A colonial hangover?

Abolishing Australia, continued

Abolishing Australia, continued

From the Vdare.com blog:

Australia to Merge with Asia?

Posted By Allan Wall On 11 June 2008 @ 9:32

The great nations of the Anglosphere seem determined to merge themselves out of existence.

Mass immigration is making the U.S. a part of Latin America, while an emerging North American Union would combine Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.

Across the Pond, Britain surrenders her sovereignty to the European Union. Not to be outdone, Down Under, the Australian Prime Minister appears to want to merge Australia with Asia.

An article in the Herald Sun entitled Unified Currency Chance with Asian Union, Says Expert [Jane Metlikovec, June 05, 2008] reports that Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has “announced his plan to create a broad Asia-Pacific Community by 2020.”

A certain Prof. Tim Lindsey of Melbourne University thinks that’s a great idea:

“We are living in the “Asia century,” he said.”Australia is uniquely positioned as the only Western society in Asia and we have never capitalised on that, despite most of our commodities going to Asia.”

So what about Australia’s Western identity and Anglo-Celtic heritage? Apparently, that can be easily disregarded:

(Lindsey) said Australia was still suffering from a “colonial hangover” by setting ourselves apart from Asia. “This perception of ourselves as a European nation has to change,” he said.

PM Rudd has chosen a point man to advance the project:

“Mr Rudd has appointed former foreign affairs secretary and one-time ambassador to Indonesia Richard Woolcott as Australia’s envoy to sell the idea.”

There is some political opposition:

Opposition MPs are divided about Mr Rudd’s plan, which he put forward during a speech to the Asia Society Australasia Centre last night, just days before he heads off on a week-long visit to Japan and Indonesia.

Opposition’s foreign affairs spokesman Andrew Robb says the plan is presumptuous.”His (Kevin Rudd) first job is not to be making pronouncements about grand architecture for the region, telling China, Indonesia and Japan and India how they will be organised as a region by Australia in the next 20 years,” Mr Robb told ABC Radio.

Nevertheless, Robb’s opposition seems more a question of practicality than a concern for Australia’s cultural identity:

“Once (Rudd) has demonstrated a capacity to build and maintain and grow strong bilateral relationships with all these countries (and) repair the damage he has already done with some of these countries, then we can… maybe influence the broader architecture that shapes the region.”

How about the argument that Australia’s cultural identity is non-Asian? Is that a legitimate argument nowadays?

More on Rudd's proposal to abolish Australia:

A colonial hangover?

Rudd's plan to cede Australian sovereignty

A colonial hangover?

Lawrence Auster has commented on Kevin Rudd's plan to create an "Asia-Pacific community." He pastes an article from the Herald Sun which contains these comments from a Professor Tim Lindsey:

Professor Tim Lindsey from Melbourne University said an Asian Union was a fantastic idea.

"We are living in the "Asia century," he said.

"Australia is uniquely positioned as the only Western society in Asia and we have never capitalised on that, despite most of our commodities going to Asia."

He said Australia was still suffering from a "colonial hangover" by setting ourselves apart from Asia.

"This perception of ourselves as a European nation has to change," he said.

Professor Lindsey's assertion that "Australia is uniquely positioned as the only Western society in Asia" is geographically erroneous. Australia is not a part of Asia - it is a unique continent in its own right. Moreover, if Professor Lindsey were to stroll over to Melbourne University's Geography Department and examine a map of the globe, he'd find that most European capitals are, in fact, closer to the major Asian power centers than the Australian capital Canberra.

Geographical fallacies aside, Professor Lindsey's comments are a reminder that most of Australia's political, economic and academic elites are at best indifferent, at worst openly hostile, to the preservation of Australia's historic European culture and majority population. In fact, according to the good professor, the loss of our identity as a predominantly European nation would be desirable! Lindsey presumably believes that the disappearance of traditional British/European Australia is required to rid this country of its "colonial hangover," so that a new, emancipated Australia can fully realise its Asian destiny.

While demanding that Australia's historic identity be extinguished in order to "capitalise" on the "Asia century," Lindsey doesn't actually explain in any specific terms how Australia would benefit from becoming less European and more Asian. More trade? As the professor himself notes, most of our commodities are already going to Asian countries. And we certainly don't have much else to export to Asia, especially not since our own manufacturing sector was decimated by the rise of the Asian manufacturing mammoths. In reality, trade with Asian countries does not depend on Australia redefining itself as a part of Asia. No more than the remarkable post-war increase in trade between Japan and Western countries was contingent on Japan abandoning its traditional identity.

What does Australia stand to gain then? More "cultural enrichment"? While de-Europeanisation may be the goal of those elites who loathe traditional Australia, and believe that Asian peoples and cultures offer something inherently superior, not many Australians would consider the loss of their identity and culture "enriching." The wholesale destruction of a nation's historic identity and culture never is.

Rudd's plan to cede Australian sovereignty

From The Age:

Rudd pushes for Asia Pacific Community

June 4, 2008 - 11:27PM

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has flagged an ambitious plan to lead debate on the creation of a broad Asia Pacific Community by 2020.

And he has appointed former foreign affairs secretary and one-time ambassador to Indonesia Richard Woolcott as Australia's envoy to sell the idea.

Mr Rudd put forward the concept during a speech to the Asia Society AustralAsia Centre on Wednesday night, just days before he heads off a week-long visit to Japan and Indonesia.

"I believe it is time that we started to think about where we want to be with our regional architecture in 2020," he said.

"We believe that we need to anticipate the historic changes in our region and seek to shape them, rather than simply reacting to them."

Mr Rudd wants any new regional creation to span the entire Asia Pacific, including the United States, Japan, China, India and Indonesia.

And he believes it must engage in broad dialogue, cooperation and action on economic and political matters, as well as future challenges related to security.

"The purpose is to encourage the development of a genuine and comprehensive sense of community whose habitual operating principle is cooperation," Mr Rudd said.

"The danger in not acting is that we run the risk of succumbing to the perception that future conflict within our region may somehow be inevitable."

Excuse me, Mr. Rudd, but I do not recall this plan being put to the electorate in November 2007, and enunciated as a significant foreign policy initiative. I'm sure I would've remembered any proposal to thrust Australia into some kind of EU-style 'Asia-Pacific' union, thereby eroding our national sovereignty and dissolving our borders.

The truth, Mr. Rudd, is that you do not have a mandate to surrender Australia’s national sovereignty, especially not to a supranational body dominated by countries with which Australia has little in common. Australia is neither geographically nor culturally a part of Asia, and it would be a grave and irreversible mistake to erase the sovereignty and identity of our nation in some futile attempt to "fit in" to the region.

As incomprehensible as it may seem to you, the majority of Australians remain wedded to the idea of a sovereign Australian nation-state with control over its political, economic, cultural and demographic destiny. Unlike yourself, they're not prepared to relegate the Australian nation-state to a tired piece of history.