"I have reduced my consumption of meat by 90%:"
mmm that means this person is practically a vego.
It's likely that the lack of red meat in their system has led them to have some of these silly ideas, Give that person a steak a egg sandwich.

Yes, it is up to all of us, rather than we know best elitists willing to conscript the evocations of others? Even so, some of the opinions expressed by the conscripted pensioner, who could be a pensioned off Dr Bob Brown and not the majority view? Moreover, you seemed to have missed or overlooked brexit, given the leave response was a patent response to virtually open door borders, which enabled some of the most undesirable people to force their presence on folks who didn't want them or their impositions on lean and getting leaner welfare budget!

It is up to all of us and our votes on saturday, will decide who that us is! And can I add, it will never ever be a dictatorial tail that wants to wag the dog! That outcome is a fraught road to tension and division! We retain a right to decide who comes to this country and the manner of their arrival! As I do if an intending freeloader turn up at my doorstep demanding I share my abode with him or her!

What's missing in the emotive evocation is a fail safe method that exposes the frauds trying their luck as intending economic migrants, who are simply feigning persecution as a vehicle to get an economic outcome? It's not as if the space age technology doesn't exist, just the leadership we need to see it acquired and deployed!

Foreign aid is another area of contention where many corrupt administrations may well be diverting our intended charity for other nefarious purpose, that may well allow the recipient government to distribute it as fired bullets and exploded shell fragments, or used to simply impose stone age sharia law? And given those possible outcomes, we need to be far more circumspect with our shrinking aid dollars!

Simply put, if our foreign aid has to be borrowed money? Let those who need it, borrow it!
Alan B.

Point no.2

In a nutshell, the root of the problem is the problems back in their homeland. I am so sick n' tired of being made to feel guilty in this country because I don't approve of letting anyone, no matter who they are, into our country of Australia. Why are their problems suddenly mine! perhaps this is why I "turn off" from mainstream media BS about this we hear nearly everyday.

Seriously, unless the socio/economic/political problems are solved or well on their way to being solved back in their original homeland. These "boat people" problems will always be with us. No, I don't have clever solutions to their problems either, but unless they "grab the bull by the horns" their problems will NEVER get solved. It's a big complex ugly issue, but running away from it like they do when they try to come to this country is just pushing the problem(s) further down the road for someone else or some other generation to try and fix.
In the past they use to just have violent bloody wars to solve a lot of these problems in their homelands, but today with international treaties and laws, it just makes solving this highly complex issues even more highly complex..

It seems to me that Scott's heart is in the right place.
Yes it is all up to us because we have all helped to create the situation that we are now in, and hold in place.
And the problem is very very complex with all the seemingly different aspects being in one way or another inter-connected.
Furthermore, we have all been heavily propagandized (brain-washed) into a doubt-mind by all of our media, "education", and "religion" too, into believing/acting that we are all irreducibly separate from each other and the world-Process altogether.
And what we call civilization, or what remains of it, has come to its inevitable dead end, as described here:
http://sacredcamelgardens.com/literature/reality-humanity.php

These two references describe the nature of the problem too, and what, if anything, that we can collectively do about it.
http://www.beezone.com/da_publications/coopdoub.html
http://www.beezone.com/da_publications/coopcomm.html

http://www.priorunity.org

And perhaps reducing ones consumption of meat is at least a step in the right direction - as these two references point out:
http://www.rawgorilla.org
http://sacredcamelgardens.com/wordpress/wisdom/observe-non-humans-and-learn

The trouble with a cri de coeur is that it often bypasses the brain. If Scott or his anonymous pensioner are really concerned about the possible dangers from anthropogenic climate change, their first obligation is to seriously investigate what's known about this phenomenon and separate the facts from the propaganda. This will almost certainly assuage their concerns: and if it doesn't, then they'll be better informed and capable of making a rational case, rather than merely crying 'Look at me! Isn't it terrible!'.