I believe there is something like 21 million refugees in today's world, Australia has around 8 million [?]tax payers. Do you think we should bring in all or most of the 21 million, most of whom are tribal people?
Can't stick them in the centre of our country, no water.Cities are now overflowing anyway,elsewhere there is a shortage of all utilities plus water. We have Aboriginals living in awful conditions,can't put 21 million out there.
Arthur Calwell had more sense in one little finger than our bleeding heart Multiculturists have in their collective brains.
At least he had the sense to look ahead,the bleeding heart brigade never look further than the end of their face.

mickijp, depending on whose figures you believe, we bring in somewhere between 150000 and 300000 migrants a year now.
Maybe 30000 of them are refugees. To argue we aren't capable of taking more refugees is to suggest that we have a greater obligation to allow non-refugee migrants in that ones with a genuine need for assistance. I don't see any issue with doubling our refugee intake, and halving our regular migrant intake. We can certainly afford it economically.

What is our refugee program for? It is a totally useless and discriminatory sop to the United Nations by countries who now wish they had never signed the Convention.

It is discriminatory in that most sufferers of repression, starvation, whatever, remain in their own countries to continue their suffering while only a few with the luck and ability to pull the wool over the UN'S eyes arrive in Australia and similar countries to squat on bus-stop seats, with Uniting-Church provided mobiles pressed to their ears, enquiring about the dole they will be on for the rest of their lives - i.e. until they can get a loan to swan around in a used Holden Statesman at the peril of other motorists.

"Refugeeism" is the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the Western World.

Judging by what we see on our daily news reporting, many countries, particularly in Africa, are engaged in Ethnic Cleansing.
The plight of the poor dispossessed is extremely distressing but no country can take in such huge numbers and yet retain it's own long term identity.We can't, with our small population,it would not take many decades before we would be outnumbered.
Maybe that is the ambition of the Multiculturist, a long term hope .
The UN is toothless, it should be protecting the defenceless against the warlords, all it wants to do is shovel it's responsibilities onto the Western nations.With the willing assistance of the B H Brigade.

Leigh, I'm not even going to bother responding to that in words.

Burmese living conditions:

http://www.ibiblio.org/freeburma/humanrights/khrg/archive/photoreports/97photos/section7/larges/138.jpg

Iraqi living conditions:

http://www.phmovement.org/files/Children-Refugee%20camp%20in%20Heet-%2025th%20June%202006.jpg

Sudanese living conditions:

http://www.state.gov/cms_images/sudan_refugee_600.jpg

Australian living conditions:

http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2006/10/27/js28n_pool_wideweb__470x346,0.jpg

http://www.tourism.wa.gov.au/SiteCollectionImages/ChildrenCityBeach.jpg

http://www.scu.edu.au/news/images/children2.jpg

If it makes me a bleeding heart lefty to believe that those children in the first three photos fully deserve to be enjoying the conditions that those in the last three are, then I'm proud to be one. Actually, I think it just makes me a human being. We can't take them all, but we can sure do a lot more than we are now.

Unsurprisingly, my view is much closer to that of wizofaus than to mickijo's or Leigh's, who seem to be exactly the types of misanthrope to whom Kevin Andrews' dog whistles are directed.

While I think there is a case for applying some restrictions on immigration into Australia on environmental grounds, a much higher proportion of those who are admitted should be refugees. Relatively speaking, Australia is a wealthy country that could easily accommodate more people who seek to come here on humanitarian grounds, rather than give preference to economic immigrants as we do now.

Further, the ethnicity, religion or so-called 'race' of refugees should not be any kind of factor in asessing their eligibility. Calwell was an old-school racist ("two wongs don't make a white" etc), and the last thing this country needs is to slide back into the bad old days of the 'White Australia Policy' of which he was an enthusiastic proponent.