Your figures for immigration are naive. With an open border, the influx would be limited only by the available transport.

Compare this with South Africa who summarily deports thousands per day, and is still sitting with an estimated 10 million illegal immigrants mostly in vast squatter camps, and are the source of most of the crime which has made Johannesburg the most dangerous city in the world.

This is not something Australia needs or can deal with.

Australia cannot conceive of open borders in a rational way.
But if it is to find its true potential, it should give it a go.

Good and thought-provoking article.

There was an interesting program on the TV other day about a Spanish resort town, much of which is populated permanently by Brits, Danes and Dutch. Thomas Jefferson called Europe “nations of eternal war”. But it seems the Europeans, having spent untold thousands of years warring over their old borders, are starting to think of them as irrelevant social anachronisms, which I think is a great thing.

And of course the single community nations that we today take for granted – like Germany, the USA and Australia – were, not so long ago, made up separate states with trade or movement barriers between them. It is only because of the leading vision of the economists of the nineteenth century, who exploded the fallacies of protectionism, that we are able to speak of Australia now.

The idea that the population of Australia is unsustainable, being based on Malthusian reasoning, is wrong. Their persistence in error proves them wrong, not right as they suppose. It is ludicrous that we live in the least inhabited continent on earth, with untold resources of land and water(!), but are forced to do without the benefit of people just across the way, who also would benefit from living here.

Progress in understanding that those across the way are not aliens, who file their teeth and eat their babies, but people like us, is slow but gradual. This humane understand is naturally retarded by protectionism, nationalism and socialism, and naturally unfolds from free movement and free trade.

For example, many of the objections to immigration are based on the idea that the new-comers would be a drain on social security or infrastructure. In other words, the objections are not based on racism per se, but on socialism.

There is no future in the past, and the day when the people of the world can freely move and peacefully trade between countries will be the fullest expression of our common humanity.

David McMullen...for a Scot who presumably knows a tad about his own nation and race's history.. your suggestion of open borders is bordering on the *words fail me*.

But this does tell us a lot (from your plug for your book Bright Future)

"Collective ownership by those who do the work will then be the obvious way to go."

Ummmmm...errrr.. *no*.. it will not be obvious nor workable. There are more holes in your general proposition than a large kitchen sieve.

I find it beyond amazing that a Scot would even think that way.

I think I'll send you to Inverness for some re-education. It will begin with a trip to my forebears tomb "Fortrose Cathedral" where you can ponder why it lies in ruins. (reading about Cromwell would help)

David let me ask you this.. do you believe in God ?

Do you believe in Darwinian natural selection as an explanation for the various races?

Once I know that..we can progress the discussion.

Since the end of WW2, Australia has managed one of the world's most successful immigration programmes. Australians have generally, with a few exceptions including an occasional outburst of racist sentiment, accepted this programme with good will. This good will continues because people can see the economic and social contributions migrants have made to this country and because, by and large, social cohesion has been maintained. That is, Australians don't see immigration as threatening and the programme has been managed by successive governments to ensure that this perception is reflected in reality.

Open door policies and the current rush of boat people threaten both the perception and reality of social cohesion. Australians will accept a programme they believe is being managed carefully and fairly by their government. When they feel the programme is out of control and people are behaving unfairly in their quest to migrate here, the good will on which the whole system relies is under threat and backlashes against particular groups of migrants are more likely to occur. That's why stopping the flood of so-called asylum seekers is essential to the long term future of our immigration programme.

Peter Hume, the welfare state and government spending big on infrastructure are hardly 'socialism'. Every capitalist economy relies on such government expenditure, including the USA. But it's certainly accurate that some voices claiming to be of the left (what I think of as the 'pseudo-left') are opposed to open borders in immigration. Kelvin Thompson MHR is a good example. He gets away with it in his electorate because of the large proportion who vote Green and oppose population growth.

Which raises a question for David: why did you not mention the Greens' opposition to population growth which implies an opposition to open borders? I have heard the Greens' spokesperson on immigration, Sarah Hanson-Young, say that the Greens support the deportation of those asylum seekers who are found not to be genuine refugees.

That is the category that really matters: asylees who are found not to be genuine refugees as defined by the UNHCR. Labor, Liberals, Greens, etc., all accept that such people should be deported. But this merely keeps us all stuck in the present tragic Ground Hog Day and, as David McMullen so eloquently argues, the best way to abolish illegal immigration is to make it legal.

It strikes me that he is arguing from a genuinely left-wing, or Marxist, perspective; though, of course, some classical liberals (like Chris Berg) also argue for open borders.

What's up with the social system of capitalism that it regards people as a problem?!

"What's up with the social system of capitalism that it regards people as a problem?!"

More intellectual confusion, or dishonesty, from the socialists trying to squirm out of the inevitable consequences of their own belief system.

What's up with "capitalism" as you have defined it, is that you have defined it to include government overriding market transactions and setting up huge bureaucratic empires of forced redistributions, and state ownership or control of any service you would care to mention: roads, rail, electricity, water, education, medicine, charity etc. etc.

*That* is why people object to immigration - because they are afraid that "our" infrastructure will not be able to cope. But no-one thinks we won't have enough mobile phones, or pizzas, or motor bikes, or steaks, or whitegoods, or friends, or conversations - privately provided goods - because they are "too many people". They entertain this anxiety only in relation to resources that are controlled or provided by government, such as hospitals, roads and social security so-called. This is not because of capitalism you fool, but precisely because government lacks the incentive and the ability to calculate what is the economical way of doing anything: it's because of socialism, however re-named by its faithful adherents.

*Obviously* if you define private ownership of the means of production to include anything and everything that violates and distorts it, you will have plenty to criticise in the resulting mess, but the fault will lie not with capitalism but your own confusion that defines capitalism to include its conceptual opposite.

Is this article "tongue in cheek"or of serious intent?

Hi Byork...you ask:

What's up with the social system of capitalism that it regards people as a problem?!

welll........ your question requires an essay to respond to, but I'll spare you.

It's never 'people' who are the problem...it's what they believe and 'do' that is.

Incompatible creeds or culture are a serious problem.

If your creed is based on the ideas of Adolph... *problem*

If your personal creed is to destroy Western civilization by moral subversion...*problem*

Google this *Triple-Exthics*

go to the 'original' source. The key quote is in some of the more radical 'white' web sites for sure..but it comes from an interesting source.

Under the heading 'Sexual Revolutionaries'.. err would 'you' invite one of those 'stars' into Australia ?

Oh...one more.. "beliefs" are the problem..

Would you invite Noel Ignatiev into Australia ? He's the same 'race' as the author of that earlier one. (Triple)

http://racetraitor.org/abolish.html
http://racetraitor.org/

People are not the problem.. "People+ certain Ideas" are the problem.

The call for an opening of Australia's "borders" is correct. There is no question that Australia's wealth can accommodate open immigration.
The idea usually creates hysteria, but for different reasons.
The so-called national identity has been constructed to create imaginary differences between peoples, and this leads to soft (threat to our standard of living) and hard racism (culturally inferior foreigners). Employers don't want to contribute to the costs of education, training & social services, but want skilled workers, so they push for visas that are discriminatory. We can easily subsidize immigration increases, and improve public health facilities, by abolishing the wasteful subsidies to big business and taxing the rich.

David's is a logical argument based on the premise that if people who have more by virtue of their place of birth are prepared to accept a pay cut then this would be to the overall benefit of people who have less because of their place of birth. Although the logic cannot be faulted the premise is currently not accepted by most Australians and is unlikely to be for some time.

Hard to say whether David's piece is a worthwhile thought experiment, a provocation, utopian politics or a plea for a better society.

Well said Peter Hume.

But the poor thoughtless brainwashed fools will still tell you our capitalism is the cause of our problems.

Open borders are a silly idea if we don't try to regulate the migrants by skills. Too many unskilled migrants would see a huge reduction in the standard of living, not of people like me or McMullan, or any of those over educated and usually public funded individuals, who continuely and inanely condescendingly address their comments to the poor buggars who are struggling in under-employment, extreme basic low wages or benefits (Pensions). It is they of course they who will suffer lower wages, longer hours, substandard or overcrowded accommodation, congested health systems, overcrowded transport and loss of amenities resulting from an open borders policy.

Yeah sure the clever government funded, big business reliant, or self employed university educated morons who claim open borders will not lesson the standard of living are only thinking of their own standard of living.

Oh and I am a capitalist employer.

The people would keep arriving and arriving without end.

Across the north Africa and the Muslim World, there are many countries with populations already ten-times Australia's population, and there are many which are having 5 of 6 children per woman... trippling their populations every twenty years or so.

They would just keep coming and coming. If children are the future The people of the 'non-feminist world' are producing the future, as we are dying.

Meanwhile, Australians today are having only 1.8 children for every two adults - slowly suiciding out of existance. Why are we aging? Because we are failing to produce enough children to replace ourselves.

We work out why middle-class societies across the world are dying, and anti-feminist poor societies are thriving.

Middle class couples can't afford the children they want, as children are expensive. The baby-bonus and means-tested Family Tax benefits provides a perverse incentive for the welfare dependant to produce hmany children... bribing single women into servitude of many children, ensuring these children are brought up in relatively wealthy but struggling households where nobody works.

Instead we shoud make children reduce your tax... so professional parents can afford the families they want at last.

Australian men don't want to become fathes anymore - they are commitment-phobic because they don't want see their children and everything else they ever worked for stolen by the divorce lawyers

Peter Hume, best not to call others 'fools', especially when you are so oblivious to the historical reality that the state, under conditions of private ownership, invests in welfare and infrastructure primarily to maintain the social relations of capitalism. Government spending designed to perpetuate capitalism is socialist?

You may like to check out David MacMullen's website (The Economics of Social Ownership): http://economsoc.wordpress.com/ It defines the distinction between socialism and capitalism very well.

You always leave little breadcrumbs around, Boaz, for a little fact-ferret like me to follow up. For which, my thanks.

>> It will begin with a trip to my forebears tomb "Fortrose Cathedral" where you can ponder why it lies in ruins. (reading about Cromwell would help)<<

Ok. But first things first.

There are only three tombs in Fortrose Cathedral, as you know. They are those of Euphemia, Countess of Ross; Bishop Robert Cairncross; and Bishop John Fraser.

Do tell us - which one of these is your "forbear"?

The reason it lies in ruins, of course, was the Scottish Reformation. It lost its roof, first of all, to one of John Knox's purges. By the time Cromwell came along a century later to borrow some brickwork for his fortress in Inverness, it was already derelict.

The sixteenth century was not exactly a happy and peaceful time for the Scots, was it. Of course, it was that famous proddy-dog, Martin Luther who started it, back in 1520.

"If you think properly of the Gospel, please don't imagine that its cause can be advanced without tumult, offence and sedition... The word of God is a sword, it's war, ruin, offence, perdition and poison. If I am immoderate, at least I am simple and open."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/history/articles/scottish_reformation/

(Sounds eerily familiar...)

At the time, Scotland was extremely Catholic.

"By the time of the Reformation, the Catholic Church in Scotland was in a position of great power. It owned land, which it rented out, and it collected taxes. This had led to its infiltration by nobles who were far more interested in the material rewards that church positions offered than the spiritual ones. Those who opposed what they perceived to be the church’s corruption and excessive wealth became known as Protestants."

http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/higherscottishhistory/ageofreformation/background/index.asp

And there we have it. Religion vs. religion. The battle that rages through the ages (can I trademark that, I wonder?)

Now, what was that about your ancestors, Boaz?

Euphemia, we know, had two children. But as for the two Catholic Bishops... nothing.

On the right side of the blanket, that is...

Byork

The absent authority does *not* define capitalism or socialism as you claim, so it does not get you out of the confusion or dishonesty I have rightly accused you of.

“the state, under conditions of private ownership, invests in welfare and infrastructure primarily to maintain the social relations of capitalism. Government spending designed to perpetuate capitalism is socialist?”

You have not established that such spending is either “primarily to maintain the social relations of capitalism” or “to perpetuate capitalism”.
Fighting for peace is like f**cking for virginity. The assertion that by actively violating private ownership we preserve or advance it, is prima facie absurd.

To rescue your assertion, you would need to prove your unspoken assumption that, in the absence of such interventions, capitalism is not sustainable. You can see these issues thrashed out at length recently at: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=11446&page=0
You will see that no-one on your side was able to defend it without circular argument. They impermissibly assume in their premises what is to be proved in their conclusion. And when asked in what circumstances their belief could be proved false, they only reply with more circularity, which is irrational.

So if you’ve got something better to prove it with, you are welcome to try, but you haven’t begun yet.

No-one, including your or the author you link to, has ever refuted the economic calculation argument, which proves that socialism is impossible in theory, let alone in practice.

McMullen says
1. “Establishments bid for inputs on the basis of the expected value of their output and the cost of alternative available, and they offer output at prices that reflect their costs and any possible excess demand.”

But earlier he says
2. “This would mean that they [capital goods] are no longer owned by individuals or groups nor bought and sold.”

So there will be no prices for capital goods because there will be no sales of them, thus disproving the possibility of his first paragraph, and of economic calculation under socialism.

So which is it? Confusion? Or dishonesty?

Peter Hume, I'm neither confused on this nor dishonest. I think you're wrong if you believe that the USA, Britain, Canada, the European countries, are not capitalist because they have welfare states and their governments invest in infrastructure. Both are essential components of capitalism as practiced historically and currently. I see no point in debating with you about some idealised capitalism that is free of the above and that exists only in your mind.

Good on you for pushing the boundaries of thinking laterally David but governments won't keep up with the needs of infrastructure required to treat, house, employ and transport a growing population.

Reducing the minimum wage to create employment will only create a sub-class of low paid immigrants and refugees who usually have little understanding or knowledge of their legal rights in the workplace. Cutting red tape for small business is great but small business won't be able to provide employment for such a huge influx of people. A business employs only as many people as it needs even at the lower rate and even taking into account expansion opportunities.

How will these new immigrants be able to afford a house. You suggest that creating 'overcrowding' in the cities will provide but fail to mention any negative impacts of overcrowding. Some level of urban infill is inevitable with current immigration and birth rates but to extend that idea? Dangerous I reckon.

Where will the water come from - we are largely an arid nation. What will the impact be in relation to forestry, pollution, food supplies that don't involve huge imports of toxic vegetables and fruit from nations that have little in the way of regulation, nor does our biosecurity agencies who only test a minor percentage (3%) of imports for contamination.

This solution is fraught with problems and even the best of human innovation cannot continually resource ever-growing populations.

Perhaps as David concludes, on the one hand there are nice people in the world (who support open migration), but on the other hand there are nasty people (who don't).

There are close to forty million refugees in the world. There are probably hundreds of millions of other people who wouldn't mind migrating somewhere else if they could: Tahiti always looks nice. If we took half a million of each per year, we could happily fill Australia's empty spaces for the next hundred years, and hardly put a dent in those totals.

I have no quarrel with an increased refugee intake, and on the basis of dire need. I don't think we would have any trouble finding half a million per year to take out of the refugee queue who are in dire need. An increased refugee intake would boost employment by requiring far more TAFE and TESL teachers, more social workers, building workers, etc.

Why didn't someone think of this before ?

Joe

byork
It is meaningless to define A to include not-A. It is confused to use definitions that do not distinguish what is in issue. It is meaningless to define capitalism by "country", because it depends on who has ownership or control of the means of production. To the extent it's private, it's capitalist, and to the extent it's governmental, it's socialist. A "country" is no more socialist or capitalist than the world is. You are merely confused by your misuse of collectivist concepts. Your point, if conceded, would merely mean your argument is unfalsifiable.

My point is only that most popular resistance to immigration is because people apprehend - probably corfectly - that the services supplied by government wouldn't be able to cope. But that is not an argument against people, it's an argument against government's meat-axe approach to rationalising scarcity.

The biggest barriers to immigration are socialist - social security, socialised medicine, socialised infrastructure, miniumum wage laws.
Like the White Australia Policy - one of the first acts of the Labor party - or like the latter day green/left Malthusians and their view of people as bacteria or noxious pests - it is socialism that regards people as the problem *because* is incapable of economic calculation. If you can match supply with demand the supposed problem disappears.

The very purpose of immigration barriers is to restrict freedom of movement, i.e. to restrict private ownership and control of the means of production. Precisely *because* people are motivated by profit, without coercive state intervention, they will freely move and trade between nations.

BTW you still have not rescued McMullen from the disgraceful blunder on which both he and you have relied, nor been able to defend your assertion that socialism - of all things - is necessary to maintain capitalism, a real good horse-laugh to that!

Peter Hume, socialism (as the word implies) is the social ownership of means of production - capitalism is the opposite, the private ownership of the means of production. You really shouldn't laugh at people or call them 'fools' when you actually believe that a welfare state and big government spending somehow alter the private ownership of the means of production.

Socialism is more likely to provide unprecedented opportunities for people, in whatever numbers, to be productive members of society because production would be freed from the private profit motive and could be geared to social need (and fun and fantasy - this is the C21st after all).

I share your attitude to the reactionary Greens and neo-Malthusians. The Australian Labor Party has lots to be embarrassed about, and ashamed of, for its support for the White Australia policy from 1901 to 1966 (when Whitlam replaced Calwell with a more progressive policy). And so too the trade union leaders of that era (and some still today).

You may like to reflect on the fact that it was the communists within the labor movement who opposed the White Australia policy. And, just as a matter of accuracy, it was under Barton that the Immigration Restriction Act was passed, not under Labor. Barton was a Protectionist - the only two members of our first federal parliament to have the courage and prinicples to oppose the Act were both Free Traders. What next Peter Hume, will you be denying that Karl Marx supported free trade?!

You know the debate goes down a rung when people start using terms like "nice" people or "nasty" people. Niceness is not always about taking the PC or populist approach if the outcomes will be devastating for human beings. Nice people don't do that. It is a lost argument either way. Human beings will disagree about what works best and sitting on either a Left or Right perspective does not automatically denote level of "caring".

It is about carrying capacity? Many believe Australia cannot support a continual movement of people (we are talking millions) while continuing to boost birth rates (eg. Costello's two for replacement and one for the country). There is a difference between taking on more refugees in the immigration quota and opening the doors to massive and unrestricted intakes.

Where do you think most of the world's populations will end up with open borders? China cannot handle the billions of people it supports, do you really think we can do better given we provide far more in the way of social support and infrastructure.

Having a rethink about foreign policy and our impact on the developing world is the place to start. For example, it would be better using trade sanctions against dictatorial regimes and adopting a no-tolerance policy on human rights. But no, instead we overlook it (until it doesn't suit) to trade with those nations; and the effects of supporting those corrrupt regimes are overlooked.

Nations should be self-interested in terms of domestic policies - they are elected to represent - but that self interest should not override morality issues in relation to the impact of that activity on the developing world.

I think that human history would have been immeasurably better had all the self righteous feudal sculptors of humanity instead chosen to tend worms.

Dear dear Byork :)

You say:

//Socialism is more likely to provide unprecedented opportunities for people, in whatever numbers, to be productive members of society because production would be freed from the private profit motive and could be geared to social need (and fun and fantasy - this is the C21st after all).//

Ummmmmm 'no'. What socialism 'the reality' produces is a ruling elite of very rich 'proletariat' and very big population of 'workers' who are all now equally broke and miserable.

You must be very young and still idealistic ? Have you not yet recognized that "All have, do, and will continue ..to sin" ?

Human nature is driven by 3 things

-Self preservation.
-Self propogation.
-Self gratification.

or combinations of all 3. All natural human behavior can be resolved into those. It takes divine intervention and the experience related by Paul "I am crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" Gal 2:20 I know...IIII know... it sounds like religious gobbledygook.. but it is more a reality than the idea that utopia will suddenly reign when 'the workers' own the means of production.

The 'workers' need leaders... those leaders do verrrrry well for themselves once they have power. You are back to simply an atheistic monarchy.

Capitalism also doesn't produce utopia. But a society based on Godly values comes closest. Capitalism does not mean there cannot be a good social program. It means keep the jolly government OUT of our faces unless absolutely neccessary.

AGiR,

As a born-socialist, I have become painfully aware late in life of the definition, well-known in eastern Europe:

"socialism is the longest and most painful way of making the transition from capitalism to capitalism."

Having lived and worked in Indigenous communities, I can strongly attest to the bankruptcy of the notion of collective labour. On the other hand, having sweated over a vegetable garden in an Indigenous community, I can strongly attest to the enthusiasm that people have for the notion of collective consumption.

One life-lesson: all Utopias seem to require the extermination of at least one out-group, so perhaps a messy, less 'efficient' form of society may be preferable, until something better is devised. Whatever it turns out to be, it will have to build on democracy, not compete with it or seek to destroy it in order to replace it.

Joe

It all comes down to a simple moral test:

As the Titanic was drowning, those in the minority who were in life-boats steered away from the majority who were drowning in the water. They could have tried to save just a few more others, but chances were that the masses in the water would cling to the boats and drown them as well.

This is not a racist issue: a few hours earlier, those in the life-boats could have been dancing and playing chess with those in the water: the only dividing factor was that one had a life-boat and the other did not.

Now here is a real conflict:

On the one hand, Australians have no moral right to stop others from arriving at the shores of our continent. Birds and fish need no visa, nor land animals in other countries that have land-borders, so why such discrimination against humans?

On the other hand, we have no obligation to admit others into our society and economy indiscriminately.

I do not agree with the author that we owe those who arrive any sort of convenience, but I also do not agree with the government who believes they somehow have rights to block the movements of humans.

The question is, how is it technically possible to allow all immigrants physical access to the continent of Australia, but not into the state of Australia. Any ideas?

People will eventually stop coming of course. The reason is simple. Australia would become just like the festering places that people want to escape from.

I'm sure David Mc Mullen and all the acolytes of open borders would love working for $1.00 per hr in sweatshop conditions like they do in China and India.

So Arjay ...... are you trying to make a new case for another Immigration Restriction Act ?

Joe

/// I'm sure David Mc Mullen and all the acolytes of open borders would love working for $1.00 per hr in sweatshop conditions like they do in China and India. ///

How naïve of you Arjay . The people who propose these ideas wouldn’t be working in any sweatshop—no sireee!

They’’d be working in some – generously remunerated ---bureaucracy with a name like: The Special Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, jigging the whole experiment.

Or, working on SBS making documentaries like Immigration Nation –conditioning us with accounts about how horrible and wasteful our lives were prior to open borders, and how eco-friendly and humane and culturally rich our new lives spent in ghettos and sweatshops really are.

For an economist I would have expected david McMullen to at least hint at a model of to how Australia would address the obvious & inevitable pressure for financial assistance to immigrants. He must be sober enough to realise that once restrictions are lifted the onslaught woul be simply massive.
If the massive foreign aid to those countries which create so many refugees then opening a country's borders will help create even more refugees. Blind Fredie can see that. It is only when many educated Australians wake up that many refugees are agenda driven & not political then perhaps we might make some progress in solving that problem. Solving it not only for Australia but all countries if their experts too start opening their eyes.

Byork
“You really shouldn't laugh at people or call them 'fools' when you actually believe that a welfare state and big government spending somehow alter the private ownership of the means of production.”

Where do you think government gets the money from?

How can you believe taxation and government spending do *not* somehow alter TPOOTMOP?

I accept your definitions of capitalism and socialism. However they only show that it was glib of you to accuse capitalism of regarding people as the problem, when you had not eliminated the possibility that popular anxiety about open borders is based on fears of scarcity, which are based on the public not the private ownership of the means of production, as I have shown.

All the commenters are virtually confirming, in different words, what I am saying – that the perceived problem is that (government-controlled) supplies such as public transport, roads, hospitals, water, social security and minimum wages would be unable to cope if immigration levels were increased.

But no-one selling water, or housing, or services, regards it as a problem if *more people* want what they are selling.

In other words, the idea that people are the problem is an artefact of bureaucratic rule. Capitalism, using prices, can rationalize the scarcity, assigning resources to their most urgent uses *as judged by the people themselves*. Socialism can’t, because without profit and loss it only has rules and regulations to go by – planned chaos. It’s socialism, not capitalism that regards people as the problem.

“Socialism is more likely to provide unprecedented opportunities for people…”

It is only on-topic here to discuss socialism so far as it relates to open borders. The question whether socialism is possible must logically precede any question whether it’s desirable. The economic calculation argument proves that it’s impossible. It appears you may not understand why. For starters see: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=3869 . I will prove it in another thread if you ask me to do so.

Pelican
The subjects of abusive regimes should not be made to starve because of sanctions imposed by comfortable westerners.

One thing that can and should be advocated, as a practical measure, is the trebling of the refugee intake. There was a lot of talk about how Australia should set an example to the world on greenhouse emissions, so why not set an example on refugee intake? This could be part of an international push to secure agreement from the other seven or eight advanced industrial nations that have humanitarian programs to do likewise.

Many people are aware that the number of people of concern to the UNHCR numbers in the millions but the urgent element of this figure are the approx. 300,000 in camps who are classified by UNHCR as needing urgent resettlement. (My figures are a few years old - but it wouldn't be too different today). Most of the 40 million of concern to the UNHCR are not deemed in need of resettlement.

So, if Australia were to treble its intake, that would mean 40,000 a year. For the USA, it would mean 240,000 a year. The rest would mean that the most urgent cases, in the UNHCR determination, would be resettled each year.

Now, I am not disagreeing with David McMullen but trying to think in terms of immediate practical demands that can be made along the way, while raising the issue of open borders. The demand for a trebling of intake is practical and it would be instructive indeed to note who opposes it and who supports it. (My bet would be that the Greens, for instance, would be split over it, in light of their basic opposition to significant population growth).

Those like David McMullen - and Chris Berg from the IPA - who have raised the question of open borders in Australia may at least feel satisfied that in the decades to come, young people will be wondering why and how did so many billions of dollars, and so much human energy, go into maintaining borders that in so many other ways had effectively come down anyway? And at such a tragic human cost.

David McMullen and many of the rest of you seem woefully ignorant of the material basis of our survival and prosperity. The author has given us a recipe for making Australia as poor, populous, and environmentally degraded as the countries that people are risking their lives to escape. There is plenty of evidence that we aren't coping well, even with the existing population.

While Australia looks big and empty on the map, most of it is desert, and there are very few areas of really good soil, because unlike Europe and North America, soils haven't been extensively renewed by glaciation and vulcanism. We also have far less reliable rainfall. See these maps from Dr. Chris Watson at the CSIRO

http://www.australianpoet.com/boundless.html

We currently export around 2/3 of what we grow and much less in a bad year. See

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=10405

There are quite likely to be problems with maintaining our current levels of production, once we are experiencing peak oil, possible climate change problems, peak phosphate, etc. Food importing countries have been buying up farmland around the world, including in Australia, because they have doubts about the ability of the world market to supply them in the future.

Our newspapers are constantly reporting conflict over water, and there are permanent water restrictions in almost all our cities, with people encouraged to spy on their neighbours. Water can be desalinated for coastal cities, but it costs 4-6 times as much as dam water.

Our own government's Measuring Australia's Progress reports have shown every environmental indicator getting worse, apart from urban air quality. Australia ranks near the bottom of the developed world when it comes to environmental management

http://epi.yale.edu/

http://www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp/details/environment.aspx#context

The cornucopian growthists, very few, if any of them, scientists or engineers who understand the actual problems, base their ideas on a very small, atypical slice of human history. Yes, we got lucky with the Green Revolution, but numerous past societies have collapsed, with overpopulation and mismanagement of the environment playing starring roles. Those people were just as intelligent and ingenious as we are. How lucky do you feel?

While open borders are out of the question for any society that doesn't want to self-destruct, it probably would be possible to accommodate a larger population, at least for now.

Just reserve private cars and detached houses with gardens for the elite. The proles can be herded into tiny, high rise shoeboxes, with no heating or air conditioning, so that they can hear all about their neighbours' arguments, sex lives, screaming children, if they have them, and taste in music (or the lack thereof) through thin walls and open windows. You can accommodate even more people if you restrict them to a joyless, limited vegan diet, and one shower and change of clothes a week. Parks and open space can be turned over to housing for more and more people, and you will happily preside over a mass extinction, since people are more important than wildlife. You will need a system of internal passports to ensure that the proles stay where you put them. At this point your problems will involve preventing people from leaving Australia, not keeping them out. This will be compounded by a very low birth rate. Tiny flats are not conducive to child rearing, and people who are forced into them won't have enough children to replace themselves, as has happened in Japan, South Korea, and a number of European countries.

You will also need an extensive network of secret police and neighbourhood monitors to prevent revolt and ensure that people don't spend too long in the shower or otherwise violate the rules. Guards with military weapons will also be needed to protect those gated communities where you people doubtless expect to live with your nannies and gardeners. There may still be a shell of democracy, but its substance will be long gone.

Hi Divergence,

I don't know if you intended it as such but your second and third paragraphs in your last post describe Soviet and eastern European life almost perfectly, perhaps much of China as well.

Sorry, I had a couple of red wines too many when I wrote my smart-@rse piece above. Of course, every country has the right to control who enters, and to try to set population policy, and of course Australia is approaching its population limits given its present economic and infrastructural configuration. I'm blowed if I can understand why governments aren't pumping funds into higher education in order to obviate the need to keep bringing skilled people from overseas and depleting their countries of talent.

Around the world, seven billion is about right, but it will be a very complex matter of equity, distribution, development of productive forces and education policy, to get it all anywhere near right, over the next century, and to move towards more just and open societies and to reduce the likelihood of refugee situations.

As has been pointed out, governments should be playing a far more active role in supporting democracy and opposing corruption in other countries, and in strengthening people's participation in running their own countries, and thereby minimising the threat of civil wars, social breakdown, repression and the creation of refugee populations.

Joe Lane

borders that in so many other ways had effectively come down anyway? And at such a tragic human cost.
Byork,
So, now we're supposed to believe that this practice is going to snowball all around the world ? I think the opposite will take effect as soon as people see their hard earned tax dollars are being used to undermine their own future. Just look at France & Germany.
People coming to another country with next to nothing cost the host more than it's own citizens. How many years do you think you might want to pay more tax to accommodate an unregulated flow of people with no prospect of employment ? It might be good to put up a model for all to see. You might have something quite reasonable in mind but we're not mind readers.

<the idea that people are the problem is an artefact of bureaucratic rule.>

Why then do so many bureaucrats advocate high immigration?

<Capitalism, using prices, can rationalize the scarcity, assigning resources to their most urgent uses *as judged by the people themselves*. Socialism can’t, because without profit and loss it only has rules and regulations to go by – planned chaos. It’s socialism, not capitalism that regards people as the problem.>

Okay, so if a few thousand people suddenly move into my street, any annoyance I might feel about the consequences is as a result of my socialist psyche. Meanwhile, my capitalist psyche should be beaming with all the new opportunity. So the best I can expect is partial happiness.

But what of the notion of quality over quantity? What if the net result of all those extra people was a reduction in the per capita productivity? What do capitalism or socialism have to say about living standards for that matter? Surely quality of life is the purpose of these systems? Such a focus might also save us the inconvenience of fracturing our personalities in the pursuit of happiness.

Byork <300,000 in camps are classified as needing urgent resettlement>

Do you know why those people are in those camps?
Tribal territorial warfare. In every instance it is a war between two ethnic groups(tribes) with the one or both groups hellbent on killing or driving the other tribe from the territory.

Even in democracies where people vote for a leader, it does not prevent these kind of civil wars in fact it is often the catalyst that starts the war when one ethnic group does not accept the handing over of the rule of their country to the other ethnic group via the ballot box.

Do you and the writer of this article want to set up another Palestine-Jewish conflict. The allowing of hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees into Palestine has resulted in the fight over the land we see happening over there.

Don’t think that humans here are any different from humans anywhere else in the world and that it can’t happen here.

Loudmouth <Governments should be playing a far more active role in supporting democracy and opposing corruption in other countries and in strengthening people’s participation in running their own countries and thereby minimising the threat of civil wars, social breakdown, repression and the creation of refugee populations.>

Just how do you propose any government should do this? Should they bring it up at the United Nations when the representatives of all those countries are there. Do those representatives tell them to keep their foreign policy to themselves and butt out?

Does a government invade one of these countries led by a tyrant and seek to impose Democracy and then have the two dominant religious tribes in that country refuse to form a democratic government but instead almost start a civil war murdering the other tribe members over who is going to have a majority rule in the parliament? Yes I am talking about Iraq.

Or does one of these governments try to establish democracy by giving women the vote and allowing them to go to school as in Afghanistan only to have the religious men throw bombs at schoolgirls.

I think what you ask of your unnamed governments is not possible.

How do you change the religious mind-sets of some of these fundamentalist populations. Maybe you could offer a suggestion. Sanctions don’t seem to have changed a thing in these countries. Billions in foreign aid seems to have changed nothing either.

The fact that Australia sends 12Billion in aid to Indonesia didn’t stop the Bali bombings.

Anyway as I said in my post above to Byork, wars, civil or between countries are fights between ethnic bloodlines(tribes) over territorial control. They’ve been going on through the whole of history.

Peter Hume to Byork <you have not eliminated the possibility that population anxiety about open borders is based on fears of scarcity.

But no-one selling water, or housing or services regard it as a problem.

Strange that you should mention the fact that in our big cities and regional towns today we are having to pay much more for water. Water was regarded as extremely plentiful when I grew up and noone even thought of it as being scarce or having to pay big amounts for it. It actually backs up the reality of the fears the public has of things becoming scarcer when populations keep on multiplying. Provides evidence so to speak.

Peter Hume

<There is no future in the past and the day when the people of the world can freely move peacefully and trade between countries will be the fullest expression of our common humanity.>

This is a wonderful sentiment but what we should have learnt from the past and all the conflict in the world today is that this kind of utopia isn’t going to happen for maybe hundreds or thousands of years. We can talk about it and wish it was so all we like but what we have to realise is, that it is not this way and it won’t be for any foreseeable time in the future.

At the biological survival level the human being is unchanged and war will rage across this planet the way it always did and still does. When you watch the great conquerors of history from your nice comfy armchair,Atilla the Hun, William the conqueror and all the thousands of others, realise that nothing has changed the human animal since then and it is not the past but the present you are watching only the clothes and the horses and spears have changed to modern day weapons and attire.

There is an old saying, <wishing does not make it so>

people of the world can freely move peacefully and trade ,

Yes, about that herd of pink elephants flying around .... Cherful stated undeniable facts but for some inexplicable reason many don't see forest because of all the trees. One possible solution could be to let these cranks in those strife-torn countries sort it out themselves by letting nothing in & nothing out. $-8 weeks & these countries including their idiot leaders will be on their knees & pose no further threat to anyone. Then, and only then do others go in & rebuild. At the first sign of new strife from the old problem lock the gates again. Stop wasting valuable resources on people who don't appreciate them & give to those who do.
Open Borders ? Definitley not ! Lock the gates. Remember, people who can not live with each other will even be less able to live with others or hasn't anyone noticed that yet.

Peter Hume, Sorry I cannot continue this discussion. You and I both seem to support open borders but disagree as to whether capitalism is a problem in regards to them or whether socialism is (or would be, from my point of view). We agree on definitions of capitalism and socialism. I think your notion of a bureaucracy-free capitalism is not based on any existing practice or reality. Briefly, once upon a time, capitalism played a progressive - indeed revolutionary - role in transformnig society. Karl Marx waxed lyrical about this. Among the things that impressed him, or rather that he correctly predicted, was capitalism's role in globalisation, in seeking out ever new ways for producing stuff and new markets. The unprecedentedly huge mass migrations of the late C19th were part of this process.

But capitalism did not remain revolutionary or progressive for long and I think Marx was proven correct once more in seeing capitalism become a fetter on the development of productive forces. To the Green types, this is a good thing - it slows us down in our development and stops us being evil consumers. Their ideal is the kind of pre-industrial capitalist society where everyone was happy but, to quote Engels, more or less 'brain dead'.

I think you are probably a utopian capitalist, a believer in an ideal that cannot exist.

David McMullen is a Leftist influenced by Marixsm. He supports open borders. Where are the capitalists who advocate the same? When I hear statements from, say, the Business Counicl or the Employers Federation, or the Mining Industry, they are never about opening the borders but about maintaining the current restrictive planned immigration system. Usually they are about increasing the number of skilled immigrants to cater for immediate requirements. That is certainly better than those reactionary trade union bosses whose kneejerk position is to oppose any competition among the existing workforce. But the unions are not in any sense socialist - they exist to keep the workers tied to capitalism. Marx and Engels coined the term 'aristocracy of labour' in the 1870s.

Peter Hume
The same aid that attempts to feed people in those countries is also used to prop up those corrupt regimes. In some cases the continuing granting of aid fosters the very system that is responsible for the plight of their citizens. It is a catch-22 and much of the trade sanctions would only mean that the food produced within stays within - which is part of the problem with large multinationals growing food in those regions and then exporting it OS to the detriment of local food supplies.

What if the citizens themselves call for sanctions against the ruling regimes?

An open borders program is a recipe for disaster - no-one gains and everyone loses.

Hi Cherful,

Before you break my knee-caps and I plead guilty, in my defence I did say:

" ... it will be a very complex matter of equity, distribution, development of productive forces and education policy, to get it all anywhere near right, over the next century, and to move towards more just and open societies and to reduce the likelihood of refugee situations."

There are no Utopias, or perfect solutions, and a lot of water is going to flow under, and over, many bridges - if they don't wash them away entitrely - before positive changes occur, if at all. I don't have much faith in either capitalism or socialism (pace BYork and PHume), I'm a sort of Lindblom-muddling-through-semi-socialist, I suppose, verging on IWW-anarchism, like my grand-dad.

Yes, certainly, dictators should not be propped up for any dirty political reasons, such as getting Australia a seat on the UN Security Council, or a certain person into the top job there, for which slogging - Russell Coyte-like - through flood-waters is a sort of apprenticeship.

I recall that around $ 5 billion was given to Zaire under Mobutu, and lo and behold, when he died, he had $ 5 billion in his Swiss accounts.

Aid should, surely, be in kind, in actual food or equipment, or in scholarships ? Meanwhile, governments should be massively increasing the budgets of higher education institutions, and - once it is cleaned up - TAFE as well. Why should we continually poach the skilled people from poor countries for our own economic growth ? There's something obscene about that.

Jo

OPEN BORDERS FOR HAZARA'S ?

Nottttt a chance!

I am sick to death of hearing about "The pooooor Hazara's"

Utter and complete rubbish.

1/ The Hazara's are Iranian/Persians.
2/ They Speak Farsi
3/ They are SHIA muslims
4/ They INVADED Iraq and stayed..THAT is why the Sunni Iraqi's hate them.
5/ Iraq shares a border with.. IRAN!
6/ The logical destination is.. a quick trip over the border to where they CAME from !

Absolutely NO more Hazara's into Australia-Nothing more to say.

Al,

With respect, I think the Hazaras are descended from the Mongol invaders from the north, not the Persian invaders from the west. Yes, they speak an old form of Farsi, I understand, and they are Shi'ite, not Sunni, Muslims, on the whole, but this is probably more a factor of Iranian (Shi'ite) invasion from the sixteenth century than of any actual migration of Persians.

Sunni Muslims hate them and persecute them only because they are Shi'ite, not because they are Persian. They are not anywhere near in the majority in Afghanistan, around 12 % or so ?

I know only a couple of Hazara, but they most certainly don't dress or act or speak as if they were Iranians. They seem to wear their Islam lightly. Actually, when i met them at first I thought they were Indonesian.

I think you are barking up the wrong tree, Al :) Give the poor buggers a break, they have copped it from the various Sunni rulers over the last thirty years, Mujahiddin, Hekmatyar, the Taliban, and even now from the Karzai regime.

Joe

That's nonsense AlGore

Few Hazaras in Iraq

Try Afghanistan

I think Al’s post should read Afghanistan rather than Iraq –but the rest of his post is essentially correct.

The Shiites and Sunnis have fought each other for centuries and neither side can be said to have always been poor (blameless) buggers – even in the most recent civil wars.

The Hazaras are to found largely in Afghanistan , Pakistan and Iran –and one needs to remember that Iran markets itself as the mother and protector of all Shiites.It supplied Afghani Shiite militias with weapons and sanctuary during the various civil wars.

One needs to be very, very cautious about what people tell you when they are seeking residency. They often present as super nice (and for good reason) but when they obtain what they want they may turn out to be very unnice indeed.
http://tinyurl.com/2dkgsvx

And then, no matter how unnice they get, we're stuck with them.

SPQR,

But weren't those guys Sunni ? Wahhabism and support for a world-wide Caliphate, by conversion or sword, are more likely to be Sunni-oriented ?

Joe

Joe
Lest you think Shiites would NOT do such nasty things –here’s some bedtime reading. Note well their activates are not limited to the Levant.

http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia//ENGLISH/IRAN/PDF/july_03.PDF

SPQR,

Point taken, but given that there would be a very broad spectrum of opinion, belief, devoutness and fanaticism across Shi'ite Islam, just as with any other religious or fantasist movement, there may be some distance between Hezbollah in Lebanon and the forms of belief and worship of Hazara in Afghanistan, wouldn't you agree ?

When Hazara men OR women are involved in ANY act of violence or terrorism against other people anywhere in the world, please let us know :)

Joe

Well Joe, here’s one :
http://www.pashtuns.freeservers.com/custom.html

As I said: The Shiites and Sunnis have fought each other for centuries and neither side can be said to have always been poor (blameless) buggers – even in the most recent civil wars.

And the next two links two show how closely Hazara groups worked with/for Iran :

“Along with "Ustad" Abdul Ali Mazari and Karim Khalili, he was one of the founders of the Hizb-e-Wahdat Islami Afghanistan, the main Hazara Shi'ite mujahideen group, which was supported by Iran in the Afghan jihad of the 1980s against the Soviet Union.”
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IK08Df02.html

“There were four factions headquartered in Iran. They were smaller, less well-supplied, primarily Shia and their strength was in the Hazara-section of Afghanistan (the Hazarajat). They were:
&#61607; Revolutionary Council of the Islamic Union of Afghanistan-Shura-i Inqilab-i Ittifagh-i Islami-i Afghanistan was a traditionalist Shia party led by Sayyad Beheshti. It recruited among the Hazara peasants and social elite. Many defecting Afghan Army officers led its ranks. It had wide support in the Hazarajat and Ghazni Province.
--The Islamic Victory Organization of Afghanistan - Sazman-i Nasr-i Islami-yi Afghanistan was a radical Islamist party led by a council that recruited from young Hazara who were educated in Iran. This pro-Iran party was headquartered in Daykundi.
--Islamic Movement (HI) -- Harakat-i-Islami was founded by Ayatollah Asef Muhsini in Iran as a Shia faction. The party has a traditional Islamic orientation. It recruited educated Shia from all ethnic groups. Its most famous commander was Mohammad Anwari who fought in the Turkmen valley west of Kabul.
--Army of the Guardians of the Revolution -- Sepah-i Pasdaran was a radical Islamist party led by Akbari and Saddiqi. It had very close ties with the Iranian government. It had few fighters but drew from clerics who were disaffected with Behesti’s Shura. “
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/mujahideen.ht

No! What you talking about is the smartest! Open all borders and welcome in the entire world:)

Plenty of room:) Come on in....the waters fine:)

BLUE:)

As a concept, opening borders to all-comers is an idea that is ahead of its time. But the personal, ethical battle between being a citizen of a country, and a citizen of the world, is one that will only intensify in years to come.

In every dimension, the world has shrunk considerably in the past hundred years. Travel, communication, trade, all are unrecognizable from the perspective of 1911 - a year when my grandfather was about to enter his teens. One of the inescapable corollaries of this is that we are now able to see the rest of the world, not just second-hand through the eyes of traders and missionaries, but through the camera lens, and in real time.

While this is initially disturbing to many people, and heightens their distrust of anything remotely "foreign", eventually the realization that we need to see the world as a unit, not as a bunch of competing egos, will dawn upon us.

Not my generation, of course, which is steeped in the concept of "Má vlast". But I am already seeing clear signs that the youth of today - who are far more globally connected than any previous generation - actually care less about boundaries and borders, and see humanity in a far more holistic fashion.

My guess is that the question here - open borders - will continue to be political suicide for the next twentyfive years or so, while the post-war population bulge shuffles its way off this mortal coil. The debate will become more practical and pragmatic for the twentyfive years after that, until open borders becomes the default position.

By then we will have come to terms with the practicalities, and be creative in the manner in which we ensure the result is positive for the country as a whole. We might even become more influential in global affairs, if we are at the same time able to grow both in education and in culture.

Boaz - you went very quiet on the question of your forebears. Is there any reason for this?

Pericles, I concur with your point about the younger generation having a different attitude to borders and a greater sense of belonging to a global culture. I have experienced the same thing among teenagers in particular. The world is not just shrinking but there is far more dynamism and fluidity in peoples' movements across countries. At any one point, for instance, a million Australians are somewhere else. I have no doubt the future generations, travelling from place to place with minimal bureaucratic obstacles, will look back with the same bewilderment that we (most of us) now look back on the White Australia policy.

David ,
Your Plan to open the borders to virtually unlimited Immigration is to me unthinkable.

Your Philosophy of People before the Environment will result in irreversable destruction of Natural Australia, which doesn't really seem to bother you .

No doubt you have a large and interesting Museum building Plan also on the drawing board .

Australia has too many people now !

Ethically, politically and philosophically I find myself in agreement with the author. But economically, he's barking up the wrong tree, and the reason he is so wide of the mark is that his analysis has completely ommitted the field of biology known as ecology. Which kind of renders his argument null and void, 'coz it's never reasonable to sweep well-established scientific principles such as 'carrying capacity' under the rug when they get in the way of your philosophy.

Dear Loudmouth,

I am sure your knees are much too charming to break. I agree with you on your scepticism of Capitalism and Socialism, neither taken to extreme is optimal for great governance.

As was demonstrated in the Global Financial Collapse and recently in the massive flood disaster there are times when the government must step in and apply socialist policy, that is the using of government moneys or resources to protect and save the social fabric of a whole community or country. I doubt whether the Insurance Companies(private enterprise) will have enough money to bail everyone out in a disaster as big in devastation as these floods.

Some disasters to the community such as the Global Financial Crisis happen because governments commonly make the mistake of thinking democracy stands for let Capitalists rule. They should reflect that “ Demos” in the word democracy means governance for the people. If the excesses or bad decisions of executive capitalists or free enterprise starts to threaten large sections of the community, or the community as a whole then the Government must apply socialist,Demos brakes.

On the other hand if the socialist mindset starts to destroy the viability of enterprise then the government should apply some restriction here as well.

I agree with your belief that it is a Democratic duty of the Government to train skilled workers and not poach workers whose training has been paid for overseas.
As the Government sells more government run assets to Private enterprise such as the Railways etc. it abandons the great apprenticeship training schemes that exsisted in these industries and does not seem to replace them with any great financial input into other training sources.

A true Democratic government of substance has to walk a firm line between getting the balance right in allowing the free market and free enterprise to flourish which I strongly believe in and protecting the community as a whole from social disintegration which I also believe in.
I guess that makes me a Capitalist,Socialist. A believer in true Democracy.

IT has been proven beyond any doubt whatsoever that the majority of people are not capable of living peacefully. Be it physical aggression, in writing or verbally. Prove is also in every history book that people, once they have it too good, start ruining everything by stupid indoctrinated idealism. People who cop it bad make things worse by not standing up against the oppressors. This is of course very often not possible because of repercussions made possible through inaction by those charged with the responsibility of stamping out oppression & corruption. This inaction is most prevalent in wealthier societies & the utter fanatical religious. One only has to look at the great wars last century. The biggest migration in the history of mankind was caused in that so-called enlightened century. Guess what? Nothing's been learned, on the contrary. Open the border & you open Pandora's box.

There is one furphy in the open borders debate and that is that an influx of immigrants will 'take' jobs. This is not the case unless the influx happens at a rate that surpasses the ability of infrastructure demands (more jobs) and the retail sector to rally quickly to demand. Growing populations generally mean more jobs. It is not about jobs but about diminishing resources, overcrowding and infrastructure.

In fact, the greatest threat to jobs is free trade and imports from countries where there is little governance and accountability. The real elephant in the room is being ignored while creating a mountain over a molehill on immigrant vs jobs.

The holistic idea of a global citizen is not a bad one, but it (IMO) only works if there is a sharing of values and conditions, a uniform standard in relation to industrial relations and other regulations that affect the health and wellbeing of citizens wherever they are. How can a truly legitimate 'free-flow' work if (the obvious) transfer of most of the world's citizens (billions) will be an osmotic effect from the poorest to the richest. Will that effect eventually stabilise? What until then, the obvious impacts cannot be just ignored just on the basis of an idealistic principle. Idealism has to be matched with pragmatism?

What about security issues? We can pretend all we like that they don't exist, and there is certainly some level of overreaction, but they are a factor in contemplating open borders.

Weighing it all up, I cannot see it working without insurmountable problems.

Thank bl00dy god that you naive idiots are not running the country.

Open borders you reckon?

Well then I hope you are prepared for Australia to have a massively increased incidence of tuberculosis and similar third world diseases, for domestic terrorism to increase and internation terrorim to operate from our shores.

Time you people put your emotions into neutral and put your pragmatism into gear.

Pelican says the greatest threat to jobs is free trade. I recently heard a similar sentiment from a trade union boss, urging us all not to buy imported fruit and vegetables (even though they may be cheaper). This, he said, would destroy jobs in the agricultural sector.

Both claims are manifestly false. Free trade creates new jobs by increasing trade. When we in Australia purchase imported food (and other goods) were are hardly destroying the jobs being created by this process in the countries from whence we have imported the products.

It would be more honest to speak of 'Australian jobs'. But this would merely reveal the absurdity of the notion that 'jobs' have a national character.

Sorry folks, but there is no such thing as an Australian job. There's just plain JOBS. And increasingly those in the manufacturing sector are being done outside of Australia, though we remain part of the process of globalised social production.

Adam Smith had it right when he pointed out that capital goes where labour is cheaper and labour goes where wages are higher.

Karl Marx took it further with the slogan "The working people have no country".

I think I can improve on David's brilliant ideas.

Why not, in the interest of world social justice and equity, prioritise the immigration of the elderly, the sick, the untrained, the unemployed and the infirm from the underdeveloped world?

In this way we can truly discharge or moral responsibilities to the underprivileged and rid ourselves of guilt.

Let us also pay airfares and provide accomodation, training and welfare support; in this way we can prove ourselves to be a truly generous and unselfish Nation.

Consider also at the benefits to our economy and our workforce - more work in building schools, hospitals, roads, reservoirs and housing for the new arrivals.

Unemployment will never be a problem whilstsoever this scheme continues; and the new arrivals may enjoy an undreamed of standard of living and enrich our multicultural lifestyle beyond measure.

A win win win outcome.

byork
Yes, that is the usual argument for free trade and it is a pervasive one. I don't want to stray too far off the main topic but in response to your post - How can a nation that pays its citizens fairly and ensures safety in food health compete on a level playing field with a nation that does not?

I don't see a problem with protecting national jobs - if all countries ensured job security for its citizens as first priority, including some trade (as no nation can supply all its needs) problems are resolved.

Corporations will target developing nations as there is little to stop them from wreaking widespread environmental damage. That is in no-one's national interest.

Read Chris Lewis's recent article on OLO 'An imperfect liberal democrat perspective' to see the effect of employees of barely living wages in Taiwan. Ethically and morally we in the West who generally enjoy high wages expect access to very cheap goods manufactured by people who are paid a pittance to provide those products. The irony is that the middlemen and retailers often add an extra margin on profits making the cost 'benefit' to consumers far less than is touted by supporters of free trade. It is not just about consumers but about workers.

One grocer was recently interviewed in relation to the imports of Chinese apples and said he would only sell them when local product supply was low but he would sell them at the same price as the Australian product to help Australian farmers. So no benefit to consumers, no benefit to the Chinese workers and farmers and desperately needed food in those areas goes OS instead of to the local market in the pursuit of foreign currency.

"Consider also at the benefits to our economy and our workforce - more work in building schools, hospitals, roads, reservoirs and housing for the new arrivals. "

Increased house prices due to increased demand, increased ethnic tensions, increased traffic and public transport congestion, increased CO2 emissions, increased consumption of water in a drought prone nation, increased environmental degradation, increased domestic food consumption and decreased food exports,.......

No thanks.

If you want a larger population and to so badly help the third world then why don't you renounce your Australian citizenship and move to the Asia or Africa? Put your actions where your mouth is!

But most of your fellow Australians DO NOT want a significantly larger population regardless of the plight of the third world.

Quite right, Mr Windy! David could achieve the same change in living standards for himself by moving directly to Bangladesh - Dhaka for instance, or Mexico City, where there's often not enough drinking water to go around - I'm sure he would enjoy the lifestyle there and it would benefit Australia because he wouldn't have a computer to clutter up Online Opinion with his annoying nonsense.

What a marvelous vision for the future of Australia! Just open the borders and let the tired, poor, huddled masses move to Australia. It’s worked in America, hasn’t it – America took in countless millions of immigrants, but did that fix world poverty? Obviously not – there are more people living in extreme poverty today than ever before in the world’s history. There are 25,000 people dying every day from starvation and starvation-related illness. So will Australia taking in millions of immigrants fix world poverty? Well of course it won’t. So why do it?

You, David, and all those like you who argue for open borders are clearly not a bit interested in the future welfare of human kind – either of the people living in poverty overseas, or of future generations in our country who will live in poverty too if you have your way.

The best way of tackling world poverty is for resource-hungry nations like our own to stop growing, for our international aid budget to increase, for female literacy and education and rights in poor countries to be expanded, along with access to contraception.

Open Australia's borders and according to David we get:
1) A collapse in wages and conditions
2) an explosion in third-rate, jerry-built slum dwellings at the urban fringe
3) Hospitals under even more strain than at present
4) Even more tollways and traffic congestion
5) Overcrowded beaches and national parks you have to pay to get into

Terrific. Good one. No thanks.

Thank you, Cherful, for your concern about my knees, not that they're much use at my age. I agree with your ambivalence.

SPQR,
Thanks for this very interesting information. But just because there are Islamist groups within the Shi'a, and more particularly the Shi'a in central Afghanistan, does not mean that all, or most, or even all that many, Hazara people - even if they are nearly all Shi'a - are Islamists. Some may be Shi'a-Islamist only in the sense that they oppose continued Sunni domination and persecution, but not, if you like, Islamist per se, no more than all Christians in, say, Gulargambone are fundamentalists.

If the Sunni and Shi'ite Islamists ever get together, then we would all be in dire trouble. What might indicate that this is happening ? An end of Sunni bombing of Shi'ite shrines and cities in Iraq, followed by acts of brotherly love, for one thing. Co-operation between al Qa'ida and the Iranian regime, for another. Co-operation between Hezbollah and Sunni militias in Lebanon, or Hezbollah and Hamas, would be pointers. But Hamas does not seem to be co-operating even with al-Qa'ida, fellow Sunni fruitcakes.

It remains to be seen of course if the current upheavals in the MENA region degenerate into Islamist-vs-democratic struggles, as they did in Iran. I certainly hope that the far-left does not do its usual opportunist trick and help to deliver power to the reactionaries, rather than to the social-democrats and other progressive forces, its potential colleagues.

Hi Thermoman,

So are you suggesting that, if

" .... America took in countless millions of immigrants, but did that fix world poverty? Obviously not – there are more people living in extreme poverty today than ever before in the world’s history."

.... that if America HADN'T taken in those countless millions (36, I think it was), then there would have been LESS extreme world poverty ?

Ex post hoc :)

And, as you say, "Open Australia's borders and according to David we get:
1) A collapse in wages and conditions
2) an explosion in third-rate, jerry-built slum dwellings at the urban fringe
3) Hospitals under even more strain than at present
4) Even more tollways and traffic congestion
5) Overcrowded beaches and national parks you have to pay to get into."

Gosh, that doesn't sound very nice. You know for sure that all this will happen ? I suppose we should add:

"6. The sky will fall."

I've read David McMullen's article with great interest - and I couldn't decide whether he was serious or whether it was "tongue-in-cheek," especially after reading the beautiful sonnet on the plaque of the statue of Liberty. His proposal however reminds me so much of the early migration to the US. However, I do have an addendum to his suggestion of open borders. Yes, let them all in, but under the proviso that they sign a ten year contract to work in rural Australia to boost our agricultural production and infrastructure projects, and only on completion of their contract would they become eligible for citizenship and re-location
to major centres. At present migrants concentrate in major cities where there are few jobs and housing and they become a burden on government support. Farmers are desperate for labour to work their properties and frequently stock and produce are lost due to labour shortage. This solution of enforced contracts for immigrants - may be a win/win solution. This suggestion is nothing new. European migrants after the second World War were forced to sign two year contracts to work throughout the country wherever labour was needed. They worked on the railways, roads, sugar-cane fields, farms, snowy mountains, et cetera.

Australian farms are highly mechanised for efficiency. There is no work there apart from the seasonal fruit picking done by young backpackers and grey nomads, which explains the population drift to the city.

There is casual employment in mining for the skilled, able and fit, but miners do not create townships any more, preferring to fly men in and out for the long ridiculously long shift work.

'Big Australia' is sold to the punters as a way of filling in a 'vacant' Australia, but the reality is that there is only a coastal strip and unskilled migrants go where there are many familiar looking faces in the queues at Centrelink.

Contracting to work for a period in the country is not be enforceable in modern times. It would spawn an appeals industry for lawyers, advocates and activists.

Talking of country towns, the ambience has definitely changed for the worse in so many of them over the past decade or two. You wouldn't send your worst enemy to a place like Walgett and there is a steady growth in the number of towns like that. Talk with travellers, there are many country towns that used to be a nice stop for fuel and a light meal, but are avoided for fear of being abused and robbed in the street in broad daylight.

Come to think of it, there is a growing number of city suburbs that are 'no-go' areas too. Say, that must be the 'progress' the 'Big Australia' supporters have been talking about.

Absolutely NO to big Australia and open borders.

If you want to help the impoverished third world then supply them with free contraception and family planning services followed by development aid.

But do not help them by bringing them all here and wrecking this country for our children and grandchildren.

People like David are a clear and present danger to this ecologically sensitive continent and egalitarian society.

Australians, do not allow them to gain the upper political hand.

Do not vote for the Greens. They have been subverted by the humanitarian lobby and no longer primarily stand for the environment. The Australian Greens used to have a well defined population policy, but that was dumped when the humanitarian lobby gained ascendancy in the party.

Mr Windy, I think you'll find that the Greens are basically anti-growth. You're closer to their position than you'd like to admit. They are very reactionary.

Cornflower:

I appears that there is no hope for this country of ours as we will always find reasons for why we shouldn't do or try anything new.
There will always be a good excuse for inaction.That's why sayings like, "She'll be right mate," "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," "We've always done it that way," or "Wait until somebody else does it first," are so popular.
Many great inventions by Australians were ignored in this country and have as a result been developed overseas with Australians buying them
back from foreign countries. Of course, the option of trying something
different often involves taking some considerable risks - but almost every human advance is based on experiment, innovation and adventure.

Fine by me Lexi.......as long as the risk is with biotechnology or engineering or renewable energy that can be exported to the world or given to the third world.

But not if the risk is ecological in nature in a futile attempt to save the third world by bringing them all to Australia.

but almost every human advance is based on experiment, innovation and adventure.
Lexi,
I wonder if the Nazis, the present religious fanatics et al shared this philosophy ? Ah, not to forget the A-bomb & satellite warfare & bilogical wars. People are so clever to invent these things but too damn stupid to see what they can be used for..
When experiments have a good outcome all is ok but when experiments don't work out ?
Who is to say that all progress is actually good in future ? just look at cars. They're great but they also cause a lot of the pollution every idealist whines about. Look at TV. there ain't a better medium for spreading information but alas, it's only used for annoying saturation sport & bad news & advertising. What's the last decent childrens' program you can think of ? Flipper ? Well, that was 50 years ago.
To experiment with letting non-thinkers live alongside infidels is not just asking for trouble, it is just plain idiotic.

Absolutely lame, pathetic woeful and disingenous article- complete with a retarded poem/verse to substantiate the 'i have no argument so I will distract you with this' policy instead by our dear David McMullen.
In short, he subsribes to the school of 'if the superficial figures are good, and someone can make money out of something, then SOCIETY benefits!' line of low-grade thinking.
Anyway, Australia as a capitalist society with elements of social welfare, and more importantly, as a democracy with a secular moderate majority, ensuring that we retain the right to restrict access to our country and its resources to other secular moderates who would not pose a drain, and also to keep our population density DOWN, is more in most of our interests.
-

Pericles: Your stance of the need for national citizens to expand to global citizens must happen at a pace between increasingly compatible (and more civilized) nations, as opposed to a profound jump; as it currently is, most nations and people around the world are backward, unstable, and religious to the extreme- hence why I find allowing them access is a recipe for disaster.

Hence movements like the EU where the union expands one-country at a time towards similar states that make efforts to equalize their social and political settings before merging (or allowing a Visa)- at the discretion of existing members- to ensure the expansion of freedom of movement is among properly consistent states.

I predict the move will not work in the Asia Pacific for a while more due to the unfortunate fact that each country (including our own) creates many potential weak-links in each other through open immigration (most mainland Asian states still have too great an economic gap with too many impoverished areas to put a lot of pressure on Australia- but more importantly, too easily accessed by migrants from fundamentalist countries and foreign mafia networks)- meanwhile, most Asian countries would consider Australia to a liability due us having thin drug and smuggling laws, and a potentially large quantity of dangerous people with a high record of assault-murder due to alcohol abuse.