John Humphreys

From the 16th to 18th of May the Heartland Institute will be hosting their 4th international conference on climate change in Chicago.

Heartland takes a position that has variously been described as “denialist”, “skeptical” or “realist”, but which I like to call “non-scared”. I say that because the conference includes science contrarians (Willie Soon, Richard Lindzen, Fred Singer, Chris Monckton), but it also includes people who accept the mainstream story of a warming planet caused by greenhouse gases (and I cautiously include myself in that category) but who nonetheless don’t believe this represents an impending catastrophe, and it certainly doesn’t justify rushing into bad public policy.

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The immigration debate is generally between those who want fewer people to come to Australia and those who are happy with continued high (or higher) immigration. I think both groups are right.

I agree with defenders of immigration on the economic, social and environmental arguments.

The evidence shows that foreign workers unambiguously help our economy by providing extra skills, a bigger market, and more opportunities for trade. For economists, this outcome is no surprise. Restrictions on labour movement is just as costly as restrictions on trade or restrictions on foreign investment.

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