Syd Hickman - I have no quibble with the main thrust of the article but you make an assumption that there will be increasing internaional distress, and that distress will lead to more refugees.

Was recently looking at the figures for refugees collected by the UNHCR and a major surprise is how stable they are - they dipped about 05-06 and then bounced back, but I'm not sure that the figures mean anything much. If you look through the commission's latest report one obvious point is that once someone becomes a refugee they tend to stay that way for years, hence the stablity in the figures.

Is there any sign of an increasing unstable international situation? Of course there are countries with lots of problems but basically the overall story is one of a world settling down from a post-cold war shake up.

You mention climate, but you have to assume that the climate foprecasts are not only correct, but right at the top of the forecast range, to get the sort of refugee surges you seem to be expecting. Despite all the screaming you see in the media there is no real indication of anything more than below mid range, at best.. See the recent report by the UK Met Office..

The title of your article itself hints that you may feel at least a twinge of guilt about advocating a "pull up the ladder Jack" view, which you claim is realism.

Although many people would agree with you that righteousness and realism are at odds, I would not.

Like you, I do see that our current economy and lifestyles could not accomodate large increses in population, but unlike you I do not see our current economy or lifestyles as sustainable, whether or not we build a vast defence force to enforce our borders and protect our priviledged status.

I believe righteousness and reality are necessarily complimentary. This means that the solution to social, economic and environmental challenges, which even the blind can now see is urgently needed, lies in us making changes which are both righteous and realistic (see - http://on.fb.me/z94GNX )

Ofcourse there will always be real refugees who need to be dealt with sympathetically and allowed to settle elsewhere. Those who are flying in and on "leaky boats" come with suitcases full of American dollars. These are the problem. They are not real refugees but people who seek to exploit the countries where they DEMAND to be settled.They should be kicked out ASAP. Bring in the Burmese and Africans. Wihdraw from an outmoded Refugees Convention we might have once signed up on. It is outmoded.Does not apply in the present historical/political context.

We need to show some courage and intelligence to do this. As for those who jump up on their soap boxes to moralise...well,kick the soap boxes from under them.

socratease

Tony Abbott would win the next election purely upon the basis of him declaring that Australia will withdraw from the UN convention on refugees. Australian/Australians are fed up our country being invaded by people from grossly overpopulated countries who can not get their population increases under control, because they have religious or cultural abjections to birth control and abortion.

Syd Hickman has brought some badly needed realism into this debate. Countries have borders and allow their citizens to protect their collective property from intruders for exactly the same reasons that landrights4all is allowed to have exclusive possession of his house, car, garden, and other personal property, and even to call on the power of the State to help him if a random stranger decides that he would like to come into landrights' house to doss down or help himself to landrights' laptop or family jewelry. No one would work to create or build anything if random strangers who hadn't contributed could simply horn in on it. No one accuses landrights of having an "I'm all right, Jack" attitude for not wanting to share all his personal property.

Australia is not just a geographic location occupied by people who were simply lucky enough to get in early. It is a decent place to live because our ancestors and predecessors built it and because we are working to keep it that way. Each new arrival gets to share in hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of infrastructure and is unlikely to contribute enough to pay for it for decades - if ever. See this article on infrastructure costs

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/39930.html

and this one about the costs of mass migration in the UK.

http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/6869/1/MPRA_paper_6869.pdf

landrights4all wants to give away something that isn't his to give. The Haber-Bosch process (developed in Germany) and the Green Revolution (largely an American effort) doubled and in some cases tripled food production in the 20th century. It is hardly our fault and no reason why most of us should be forced into Third World poverty (because landrights4all thinks we should share) if people in poor countries simply chose to put the gains into more babies and to hang on to the dysfunctional cultural patterns that were keeping them poor in the first place. I am not saying that we shouldn't help where we can, but it is only possible to help people, rather than enabling them, if they are willing to help themselves.

I admire Curmudgeon's blind optimism that things are going to get better on the illegal immigrant front, but consider that the basic facts are against him.

First, each year there are around 70 million more people in the world, and around 100 million fewer acres of agricultural land to grow food on.

Second, peak oil, which we are either at or very close to, will be followed shortly by peak food.

Third, the oil shortage is causing a considerable proportion of the world corn crop to be used to make ethanol for use in vehicles, making the food crisis even more pronounced. This has already resulted in the doubling of the basic food price in countries like Egypt, and this price rise was the main factor behind the recent riots.

Fourth, those emerging countries like China who have money are eating more meat, consuming a larger proportion of the available grain.

Fifth, the whole world seems about to plunge into a major depression, which will cause the number of people living in poverty and misery to increase even more.

Sixth, the rapid spread of modern technology in the third would will make it obvious to all that people in Australia are very much better off than them.

None of this is new. History shows repeatedly that when the population outgrows its food supply nature will send in the four horsemen (War, Famine, Pestilence and Death) to correct the figures.

We are in for a very brutal, miserable (outside Australia), war-torn century.

Thank heavens we have a sea boundary!