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.