boat people

"The door to Australia is closing" says Nick McKim of the Australian Greens. Many people reading this might be alarmed, wondering how their relatives overseas can visit them in future. But no, this heading is misleading. It is only the little door at which asylum seekers arriving by boat appear. The big door to Australia is still wide open for others.

"The Door to Australia is closing. Breaking: Early yesterday Malcolm Turnbull stood in front of the press and announced new policy that would impose a lifetime ban for asylum seekers coming to Australia by boat. Senator Hanson immediately stated her full support. We have less than a week to prevent this heinous policy from being implemented by convincing Labor and the cross-bench to oppose it – but we need you to stand with us."

Thus Nick McKim of The Greens communicated with his friends and members of the Greens Party in Australia.

McKim refers to the latest draconian proposed policy from the Federal Government. I suspect this announcement is in advance of a further increase in Australia's very large economic migration numbers of which the Australian public appear to be unaware. This was John Howard’s ploy when he virtually doubled the NON- refugee immigration program during his term as Prime Minister. Paraphrasing Howard's own words, he figured that the Australian public would accept high immigration if they believed that the borders of the country were secure. A hard line on asylum seekers, and intense interest and reporting by the media sent Howard's message unmediated straight to the Australian people. Measured debate on immigration and population, even by environmentalists for whom population is critical, was well and truly highjacked by the asylum seeker issue.

This highjacked debate has been an ongoing thorn in the side of environmental scientists and other concerned people. It has captured the energies of activists for well over over a decade. Those involved in refugee activism are on the whole socially aware and politically engaged people who might have otherwise concerned themselves with the effects of population pressures on democracy and their own environments.

Asylum seekers used as wedge politics

Australia has reached the stage now where those who put the asylum seeker issue as first priority will hardly engage with those who are environment and population focused. Successive governments have made rational discussion about Australia’s population all but impossible by driving this cruel wedge right through the rest of us. Educated discourse both in the private and public domains has been strangled. The Australian public has been manipulated by government and the press. The victims of these narrowly defined polemics are the asylum seekers and the Australian public whose freedom of speech and determination of their future have been stolen.

The major parties sustain this confusion to their audiences whilst maintaining the hard line on asylum seekers arriving by boat. The Australian Greens who do take up the asylum seeker issue, in opposition to the other two major parties, have done nothing to help educate the Australian people. They should have told the Australian public how it is being duped and that, far from the door to Australia closing, only a small door is being slammed shut, whilst huge gates have been thrust wide open, admitting completely unprecedented numbers into the country.

The population is growing so fast that net overseas migration (the total numbers arriving minus the total numbers leaving) is now making up more than half of Australia’s population growth! (See graph, "Components of population growth Australia 1990-2015").

Do you know what the economic migration numbers are?

On ABC’s Q and A 17th October 2016, One of the panelists, lawyer and asylum seeker advocate Shen Narayanasamy “exposed” the deception that our politicians and media perpetuate, a clever blurring of the issues of immigration in total and the virtually insignificant numbers of unfortunate people who arrive by boat, seeking asylum but who make up 90% of the national discourse on immigration. She revealed that 800,000 overseas visa holders enter Australia every year, a figure (including visas issued under categories such as family reunion, skilled workers, a special eligibility category, student visas, 457 temporary workers visas and 417 working holiday visas) that totally dwarfs the figures for Australia's humanitarian intake and the numbers of asylum seekers arriving by boat . Ms. Narayanasamy said “.... I think there is an alternative because when you understand that we take 800,000 people a year and we have done so since Prime Minister John Howard, the highest intake in history, it’s because we know it turbo-charges our economy and contributes to our society.” 1 Of course the number was not news to those who take an interest and research the facts, but it was important that this person revealed this stark fact to the poorly informed general public on a popular television program .

While 1,469 once 'boat people', now mostly meeting the criteria of refugees, have awaited their fate on Manus Island and and Nauru , approximately 800,000 other kinds of immigrants arrive in Australia each year in the form of hairdressing, business, and other students, investors, families, 457 workers, bakers, cooks, labourers, mines workers, backpackers, foreign doctors, nurses, accountants, town planners, sundry religious leaders, millionaires, billionaires, with few questions asked. Most would pay far less for their passage than any asylum seekers arriving clandestinely by boat, with or without real or fake passports. Around 12,000 humanitarian applicants are admitted each year.

Eight hundred thousand (800,000) is almost one fifth (1/5th) of fast growing Melbourne's current population, whilst the total number of asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru equates more to the population of a couple of small villages villages https://www.humanrights.gov.au/immigration-detention-statistics

That is how totally out of proportion the narrative is Australia.

It makes you wonder why the Greens don't simply encourage asylum-seekers to obtain false passports and apply to become foreign students in Australia and buy air tickets. It would be so much cheaper and far less life-threatening. No-one would probably notice since we already have many people who have overstayed their visas in Australia. We also encourage many who have obtained a qualification in this country to convert to permanent immigrant whilst onshore. Australia has so many overseas immigrants now that they contribute around sixty per cent of our total population growth.

Why aren't the Greens talking about these logistical problems?

The Australian Greens' exclusive focus on asylum seekers is just too convenient for the Liberal and Labor parties, because it keeps the public eye away from the explosion of immigration that is negatively affecting every aspect of our quality of life and cost of living, with the possible exception of variety in restaurants, for those who can afford them. Around 200,000 permanent immigrants and an uncapped number of temporary entrants (in the realm of 600,000 per annum) are overwhelming Australia's capacity to provide infrastructure, to protect our urban environment and it is devastating our natural environment. Dwindling numbers and extinctions of Australian native animals are the collateral damage of habitat lost to ever advancing additional freeways, tollways, and new suburbs. One cannot help but notice that the similarity between the approximate number of temporary migrants in Australia at any one time and the numbers for fluctuating local unemployment.

Desensitisation of the Australian public

For years professional population growth marketers and governments have worked to desensitise the Australian public to large numbers. For instance, I used to tell people that Melbourne would be 6 million by mid- century and people would tell me that I was exaggerating . Now they tell me it will be 7 million as though that is just normal. And the other day I read in the Financial Review that we are heading for 8 million!

Ms. Narayanasamy was of the opinion that we are coping so well with all these immigrants, whom she believes are 'turbo-charging' our economy, that we should take in even more. The reality is that the discipline of economics is so narrow that it is completely inadequate to frame the actual problem.

Erosion of democracy

How is it that someone living in Melbourne cannot be aware of the problems this high immigration is causing us? Democracy is being overturned simply to accommodate this influx and the rest of us badly. In Melbourne, an important example of how destructive this is for democracy is the greatly protested (but little reported and little investigated) changes to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT's) planning appeals rules. See articles re public dismay about VCAT changes. VCAT was created to provide the Victorian public with free access to appeal decisions on planning. It was intended that no-one would need a barrister to represent them at VCAT and that any resident might raise a planning objection. The rules have now changed, whereby it costs a fortune just to lodge a planning objection and community groups don't dare to attend the tribunal without a barrister. Even so, the rights of appeal have been constricted to superficialities. Local government no longer has the power to decide the size of its population by restricting subdivisions and refusing building permits. The state has taken over and the state is in the business of population growth and property development, encouraging people to migrate to Victoria, collecting the stamp duty from continuous housing construction to accommodate them, and passing laws to stop Victorians from protecting their quality of life by resisting over-development.

Other states seem to operate similarly.

What about the natural environment and natural resources and amenity?

Many believe that a population of 24 million is quite small for a continent as large but Australia is a very infertile, dry continent with erratic rainfall, unique, fragile ecosystems and a low human “carrying capacity”. We are pushing our environment beyond its limits, expecting it behave like places many times more fertile, such as Europe. It will never be Europe. We should love it for what it is. This worked for the original human custodians who lived here sustainably for a proven nearly 50 thousand years.

The Victorian State of the Environment Reports 2008 and 2013 showed that Victoria’s fragile environment, especially around our coasts and waterways is deteriorating through population pressure and it is clear from this that continued high population growth is environmentally irresponsible. Ultimately we humans depend on that environment. It does not look as though the next report due in 2018 is likely to show any improvements with an anticipated half a million added to Australia's population.

Victoria has an expensive desalination plant which will for the first time be put to use this summer even after very good winter rain as, according the Premier Daniel Andrews, the dams are not at a level to sustain the current population in Melbourne. The desal plant, estimated to cost taxpayers $20 billion was constructed over multiple objections. In another blow to democracy, the community group,Your Water Your Say, was bankrupted by court-costs and had to abandon its fight.

With such rapid and continuing population growth, ever more land is taken up by housing for the additional population. Established houses and gardens are being destroyed to accommodate more people and precious farm land on Melbourne's fringes is given over to housing development.

City traffic in Melbourne is now so bad that one always re considers a trip across town by car even outside peak times.

The demand for housing is so fierce that un-affordable housing is constantly featured in our media with the blame shifted to peripheral issues such as negative gearing or "empty nesters" preferring to remain in the family home rather than downsizing. (Negative gearing in property is really only a consequence of the level of population growth feeding demand. If the prices of houses were not constantly rising it would be pointless to purchase and negatively gear! See "Are the Greens on the right track with respect to negative gearing?")

Local politics and media are saturated with arguments over new roads and railway crossings, building projects to densify our suburbs, loss of trees, and pressure on both private and public land.

No end point

The prospect of ever more disruptive projects to cater for socially engineered rapid population growth is economically motivated. It benefits the few, dis-advantages the many and has absolutely no existential purpose or end point.

Footnote
1. https://theconversation.com/factcheck-qanda-what-are-the-real-numbers-on-refugees-and-other-migrants-coming-to-australia-66912

March in March _{1 [Note from candobetter.editor]} Abbott took government by playing on the fears of Australians, supported by the Murdoch press.  Fears that have been built up and sustained through systems of secrecy, lies and deception. This is the emerging pattern of westernised governments and corporations across the globe.  And these techniques depend upon violence, fear and coercion. All of which were evident in the Manus Island riots and killing, despite attempts to demonise the victims (Howard pulled a similar trick with Tampa).

The truth is that refugees, particularly those arriving by boat, form a tiny percentage of immigration into Australia, and could not come close to the “legal” immigration figures (see here for Asylum Seeker Myths). Not to mention that we are bound by law to accept them, under our international agreements. The vast majority of immigration is officially encouraged specialist migration, done not out of any grand vision for Australian society, but solely to feed  the industrial growth model which is destroying the planet and leading not to higher prosperity for Australians, but significantly lower in terms of: levels of debt; less choices of jobs; less educational opportunities; crowded transport systems; hideous urban living developments and ongoing destruction of the natural environment.

In fact, it is this failing growth model that is mostly causing the refugee problem in the first place.  Our dependence on fossil fuels, Australia’s collaboration and support of the U.S in global manipulations to establish regimes that serve the interests of a wealthy elite; the general extraction of the resources of less developed nations;  manipulations of markets by multi-nationals which ensure that those nations at the bottom of the global food chain can never climb up, the list goes on. The WTO has never delivered the necessary agreements on agriculture that would eliminate subsidies by the U.S and other wealthy nations so as to allow developing nations to compete fairly. In the WTO’s own words: “developing countries […] say developed countries have failed to implement the agreements in a way that would benefit developing countries’ trade.”

George Monbiot – a respected journalist for The Guardian newspaper - is exactly right when he states: “The real threat to the national interest comes from the rich and powerful".

In fact the failure of the multi-nationals to achieve what they wanted through the WTO has lead to the Trans-pacific Partnership (TPP) , an “agreement” being negotiated in secret and described as a “corporate coup”.  

The manipulation of corporations is well captured in the following video parody of the Coal Industry – coal which is now polluting Gippsland as it has been polluting Chinese cities for years – to the sure detriment of their children’s long-term health.  Not to mention 8 million acres of Chinese land so polluted that food cannot be grown on it. It is in such nations that the dark underside of our growth based consumerism is hidden from view, and the less said about it in the corporate controlled media, the better:

The underlying fact is the whole destructive system is based on force. Even the most passive resistance cannot be tolerated and must be removed by force, as Occupiers around the world found out in 2012 (including in Melbourne). This is confirmed by Oxford Professor Avner Offer who says this model is: “a warrant for inflicting pain.”
Offer also says: “Economics tells us that everything anyone says should be motivated by strategic self-interest. And when economists use the word ‘strategic’ they mean cheating” and he concludes: “one of the consequences of this is that economists are not in a strong position to tell society what to do.” 

It is this coercive, cheats based system that the Abbott government firmly believes in and supports, and it is because of the faults and failures of this system that we must march in March.

In Melbourne: State Library at midday, Sunday March 16. Click here for other locations, including country towns

NOTES

#fnMarch1" id="fnMarch1">1. #txtMarch1">⇑ Candobetter Editor: Some of us are a little cautious about urging readers to jump on a popular bandwagon without citing good cause. We have tried to find out who is organising it and the origins of the March in March. The 'about' page of the associated website is not very informative, but gives a link [which facebook questions, but just put it in your browser, it's okay] to a blog by Sally McManus, http://sallymcmanus.net/Secretary of the Australian Services Union NSW & ACT Branch. The blog makes many valid complaints about Abbott, notably re Workchoices revisit risk, although does not make the point that ALP state and Federal governments have been agents of similar ills. McManus does not acknowledge the tweedledum/dummer systemic political problem in Australia. Basically you are asked to march on faith and you are not told how this will make a difference, except perhaps you are meant to assume that Abbott might be constrained by a show of people marching in the street. Because of the reach of this campaign, we assume that there must be a lot of money behind it, probably because it will garner information (via the website) of value for the financers. GetUp and the SumOfUs are examples of other organisations that do this in the guise of marshalling popular protest. March in March could just be after potential contacts who might be valuable to the union movement or the ALP, but also for various refugee activist and other political groups, commercial groups and the Abbott government itself. Readers should be aware of this when they add their facebook page or give personal information out. Nothing wrong with giving information to a union or to a political party, but they should be upfront in asking. On the March in March there is no way of contacting the organisers for more information, which is also troubling. We have also not been able to find out who Joanne Newers is, the author of the pyramaid shaped note at the bottom of this article.

The media’s treatment of the recent tragedy of migrants drowning off the Italian island of Lampedusa was predictable. Whenever a local population—whether it be in Greece, Italy, or elsewhere—is inundated with a flood of refugees, a standard news template is applied.

The formula is to convert a broad social calamity into a heart-rending human-interest story that will provoke an emotional response trumping any sober analysis. The intended message is clear. Any number of refugees have an unreserved right to be accommodated by the host society, at whatever the cost.

And the host society and its politicians have an unequivocal moral obligation to meet migrants’ demands, notwithstanding the burdens of preserving a tattered social safety net in the midst of austerity measures and high unemployment in many Mediterranean countries.

Then we discover that most have fled in the night within a day of being landed on the Italian mainland and being offered six months accommodation, according to Rome Social Services. Many are though to be heading for the more generous benefit cultures in Northern Europe.

The fate of the Lampedusan boat people is tragic, but do the media and politicians seriously think that Europe can take in the populations of Eritrea and sub-Saharan Africa? Where and when will the line be drawn? Do not Europeans—indeed, any people—have the moral right to set limits to their generosity or to husband resources for the primary use of their own citizens?

These are the issues that so many journalists never raise. Apparently the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the BBC and many others do not acknowledge limits and refugees have rights. That is what we have been told and that is what many of us have come to believe.

Thus it is possible for an indigenous population to see its own displacement as a necessary and vital exercise in humanity, "diversity,” "tolerance,” "pluralism," and democracy rather blatant colonization. In many primary schools in the UK now, virtually 100 per cent of pupils are of foreign origin, where many translators are being hired at public expense to maintain communications in the classroom.

On CBC radio, for example, in a discussion with a French author who expressed concern about growing Islamification of Europe, it was possible for the CBC interviewer to say, without fear of challenge that "we" in Canada are proud of our great diversity of religions and cultures. The multicultural experiment has been a big success. Like the audience, he had lived in the CBC Matrix for so long that he could no longer distinguish between the reality of grassroots concern and the virtual reality that he and others have synthesized over time.

In October and November 2013 the BBC and the UK’s Channel 4 News, did several reports looking at the plight of 'migrant workers looking for a better life' in Athens, southern Italy and Sodertalje - a town south of Stockholm, where the Swedish government's 'remarkable humanity and generous welfare system' has enabled 1000's of immigrants to move in and soon be granted Swedish citizenship.

The Channel 4 news reporter, Matt Frei, noted that they didn't come across any white people while in the town. No mention was made of the views of indigenous Swedes to this social onslaught or whether it was a good policy for Sweden. In the cities of Oslo and Malmo crime rates and attacks on women have gone up significantly. None of this is covered by the international media. The would-be migrants are hardly ever referred to as illegals - always the positive term 'migrant workers', proffering a sense of legitimacy.

Now the Swedish government wants to spread the burden more fairly, pushing other EU countries to take their 'fair share' of this Swedish generosity to would be immigrants. The tone politically and in the media is to unquestioningly accept this continual pressure on the EU, Canada and elsewhere to accept its humanitarian duty, never questioning how this is increasing home grown terrorist threats, food insecurity and infrastructure pressures. It is blatant one-sidedness by a supposedly balanced media.

The migration of Europeans to North America and Australia in the 19th and early 20th century took place in a less crowded world, but large-scale migration now raises vital social, environmental and economic questions about where the world is going and how we deliver reform and a better life for people wherever they are born.

By Tim Murray and Brian McGavin

During the high immigration Howard era- the fuss about the boats was a smokescreen for the fact that we were getting a lot of extra government induced totally legal non- refugee immigration which was putting pressure on absolutely everything- environment, roads, housing etc. . Howard was a high population PM whist pretending to be jealously protecting Australia’s borders. This hypocrisy and the same game still goes on with Julia Gillard although without “children overboard”.

In their second series of Go back to where you came from SBS Television convey the message that a large section of Australian society are really worried about asylum seekers, notably 'boat people' flooding Australia. It seems that those same Australians do not have a clue as to the real flood, which consists of hundreds of thousands of economic migrants and their families. It appears (from what Mr Reith said on Insight on Friday 31 August 2012) that governments believe that Australians are pacified simply by the being told by governments that immigrants are 'legal' and that the immigration stream is properly managed.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Truth about immigration in Australia

During the high immigration Howard era, the fuss about the boats was a smokescreen for the fact that we were getting a lot of extra government induced totally legal non-refugee immigration which was putting pressure on absolutely everything: environment, roads, housing etc. . Howard was a high population PM whist pretending to be jealously protecting Australia’s borders. This hypocrisy and the same game still goes on with Julia Gillard although without “children overboard”.

Asylum Seekers - Onshore or Offshore Processing; that is the question

The asylum seekers have the right to seek asylum. They are not “illegals” as Tony Abbott calls them. Whether their claims should be processed on or offshore is the main question. The numbers of people who arrive by boat are very low compared with the numbers of people who come in as immigrants under our skilled migrations scheme. The numbers the government plan to admit as permanent entries in the non-refugee "planned" migration stream this coming year is 190,000 up from 185,000 in the year 2011-12.

Think of all the additional houses, roads, cars, schools, teachers, doctors, hospitals needed for this extra population!

Australia brings in about 14,000 people under its humanitarian program and any successful applicants amongst the boat arrivals are included in this quota. I think the government has just recently increased this to 20,000.

Numbers in Australia

The ultimate carrying capacity for Australia is, I believe (from my reading of books and Internet) quite low. The Aborigines numbered less than one million when Europeans arrived. Australia now carries more than 20 times that number of people largely because fossil fuels enable our very infertile and intermittently watered soils to produce far more than they would without this assistance.

Australia is already overpopulated: immigration is now costing more than money

Australia is already overpopulated. This is clear from all the environmental indicators. See for instance, the 2008 State of the Environment Report for Victoria. All indicators are declining because of population pressures. These include waterways coastal areas, biodiversity...

Australia really needs to stabilise its population as soon as possible and then allow it to reduce. With no immigration at all Australia’s population would increase by about 150,000 p.a. for the next few decades due to the number of women of childbearing age in our population. Until there are fewer women in their child bearing years, as the population ages, without high immigration, the growth rate would remain around half what it is now, which would still be quite high.

See the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) figures for 2011 at http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/mf/3101.0/

In other words- I do not get too worried about asylum seekers as a component of Australia's population growth when governments are significantly undermining our lives, our future and unraveling our environment through huge numbers of invited and economic immigrants, whether asylum seekers come or not.

I find it strange and somewhat alarming that apparently so many viewers of SBS do not have a clue about the problem of the growing numbers in the planned immigration stream. Why didn't SBS even mention this in their four nights of program on the subject of fear of asylum seeker floods?

Both sides of parliament are saying that the problem is asylum seekers dying at sea as they attempt to reach Australia. Other groups claim that we are "racist" and "xenophobic" for being heartless, and that we have the capacity for an open-door approach of the Greens. There are probably millions, if not billions of impoverished, persecuted peoples who see Australia as a "rich" country and an ideal soft target for resettlement. This is despite the pressure on jobs, housing, infrastructure, food security and environmental concerns. If we need to make a deal with Malaysia, or Indonesia, we should be free to do so. The solution is to discard our alliance with the UN Refugee Convention.

Julian Burnside: Australia does not want boat people, dead or alive

The Australian government is currently embroiled in a heavy debate over asylum seekers in light of the recent tragedy. Both sides of parliament are saying that the problem is asylum seekers dying at sea as they attempt to reach Australia but, "they just don't want boat people getting here at all, dead or alive," the Australian barrister Julian Burnside told ABC radio.

Of course our government doesn't want asylum seekers. It prefers the well-heeled and educated immigrants. Burnside says Australia needs to set up a fair dinkum, fair processing system in Indonesia with the co-operation of the Indonesian government.

The safe and off-shore selection of approved refugees being settled orderly into Australia is the obvious solution to the problem but one that doesn't want to be mentioned or accepted.

Other groups claim that we are "racist" and "xenophobic" for being heartless, and that we have the capacity for an open-door approach supported by the Greens.

According to a recent Monash report, the Australian Government is running a record-high migration program, which it intends to increase in 2012–13. Just over half of the migrants are locating in Sydney and Melbourne, rather than in the resource industry states. At the same time as the Labor Government is permitting employers to sponsor an unlimited number of temporary entry 457 visa holders.

It means we will have the highest annual permanent entry level since World War Two.

The 2012–13 immigration program: record numbers, city-bound by Bob Birrell and Genevieve Heard

Population pressure already on Australia

There are probably millions, if not billions of impoverished, persecuted peoples who vie Australia as a "rich" country and an ideal soft target for resettlement. This is despite the pressure on jobs, housing, infrastructure, food security and environmental concerns.
Already Australia has shortages of public housing, hospital beds, public funding for education, and health care. The "Lucky country" has been exploited for its full extent, and housing is either un affordable or people are under mortgage stress.

The carbon tax will exacerbate the heavy costs of energy infrastructure that continually must expand for our burgeoning population.

The Refugee convention

Australia is one of 147 signatory countries to the Refugees Convention. In the 2010–11 program year, the Humanitarian Program delivered 13 799 visas. This number included 8971 visas granted to persons offshore and 4828 program countable visas granted to people seeking protection in Australia.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres warned in May 2012 that factors causing mass population flight are growing and over the coming decade more people on the move will become refugees or displaced within their own country.

"The world is creating displacement faster than it is producing solutions," said Guterres.
Guterres said displacement from conflict was becoming compounded by a combination of causes, including climate change, population growth, urbanization, food insecurity, water scarcity and resource competition.

Australian political fixation with asylum seekers

Australia’s fixation with asylum seekers arriving by boat has cost taxpayers nearly $2.4b since 2000, according to Budget and ANAO documents. The expenditure includes spending to deter, process and most of all detain asylum seekers who have arrived by boat. The cost also does not include hundreds of millions spent on border security measures adopted under the Howard Government.

We simply cannot afford to increase our humanitarian settlement while we are forced to devote a disproportionate amount of resources to dealing with boat arrivals, which is a very expensive proposition. For the first four years of any increase in our Humanitarian Program, every additional 1000 resettlement places would cost the Australian Budget around $216 million. By extension, an increase to 20 000 would cost the Budget around $1.35 billion over the first four years. (Minister for Immigration, Chris Bowen 2012).

If we need to make a deal with Malaysia, or Indonesia, we should be free to do so. The solution is to discard our alliance with the UN Refugee Convention. All the costs and debate could easily be solved.

Refugees in a changing world

The UNHCR said last year that 43.7 million people were displaced by conflict, poverty, famine and persecution — the highest number in 15 years. Our planet is not a series of endless frontiers, but a fragile spaceship with limited resources, already overloaded by humanity. There are no new colonies so settle in, no new frontiers to invade and conquer.

Mr Burnside said Australians seemed to be unable to accept the premise of the UN Refugee Convention which states that countries have some obligation to offer protection to people facing persecution and violence.
"Unfortunately, I think Australia has not quite worked out whether it's willing to carry that burden."

Mr Burnside is obviously speaking from a position of privilege and wealth! It's assumed that Australia is a vast brown and empty land with room to share for any millions of people! There's no consideration for our environmental "carrying capacity" - and social and economic constraints. Already we are under population stress, and we already have the record as the biggest wildlife exterminator in the world.

Australia should withdraw from outdated UN Refugee Convention

We need to withdraw from the outdated 1951 UN Refugee Convention. The UN should not dictate how we manage our diplomatic affairs. We are a sovereign nation. This is a relic from a different era when peoples were displaced by World War 2 and the holocaust.

The Vietnamese boat-people came at a time when Australia has room to spare and we were still a wealthy nation. Population pressure and globalization has eaten into and diluted our wealth.

The world today is a vastly different place than it was in 1951, and the ability of the Convention to address increasingly complex drivers of displacement and migration is limited. Many experts argue that the current framework is ill-suited to meet new drivers of human mobility, but the prospects of a new international agreement are few.

Need for a more equitable immigration system including humanitarian intake

In response to the demands of responsible global citizenship, and a more equitable system of immigration, we should slash our unrealistically high economic immigration levels, invest in skills training and tertiary education, and increase our humanitarian intake - selected off-shore only. The random arrival of boats, and the shipwreck disasters, would ultimately decline.

REFERENCES

Source for part of this information and opinion was an Age article, by Rachel Olding, "Asylum seeker impasse 'pathetic': QC's plan to stop the boats," June 29, 2012.