On the subject of lies... and lies that fester into vile sores...

Is the author of the article the same Marilyn Shepherd who wrote on Crickey in answer to the question: Were Customs and the Navy ready for Christmas Island rescue?

<< I suspect the truth is they were bored, had a hang over because they do booze a lot on Xmas Island or they were involved in the drug smuggling ring under cover of their work.>>

shepherdmarilyn
Posted Wednesday, 22 December 2010 at 1:57 pm

http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/12/22/were-customs-and-the-navy-ready-for-christmas-island-rescue/

Hmmm!

Thank you for this well-researched article Marilyn. Firstly on King Hazza's point "this article actually proves that we actually have plenty of legal grounds to continue in the direction she insists we can't". I'd say rather that the article demonstrates that politicians can turn laws in whatever way suits them. All they have to do is decide (on voters' behalf) what they want to have happen, and it can be made to happen, even if what they (we) want is to mentally and financially brutalise vulnerable people for political purposes.

However I'm not particularly interested in laws and soforth so I'm going to go a bit pie-in-the-sky if I may.

Geoff of Perth says "We now live on a planet that is growing its population at a clearly unsustainable rate, the same goes for energy consumption, industrial food production, water use and contamination, climate and other issues too long to mention, afflict this finite resourced planet."

Putting two and two together, I would be interested to know what might be the effects of much freer migration on the world's population, energy consumption etc. Intuitively you would think that having large numbers of people move from low energy-consuming countries to high energy-consuming countries would cause higher energy consumption overall. And yes I'm sure this would be true in the short term.

But what of the long term? Is it possible that free migration, accompanied by responsible global efforts to reduce energy consumption and an international arbiter that safeguards the most valuable public goods - ie oxygen-producing and arable land - from profit-making activities that would destroy them, might actually reduce population growth and energy consumption in the long term? Or that it would at least distribute the global population along lines more or less equivalent to both economical and environmental sustainability? Might not a global economy based as much on environmental sustainability as well as economic sustainability intrinsically entail uninhibited migration?

And I've never understood how you can argue for free trade without arguing for free labour mobility - so come on Australia, let's make it happen, because we can!

Sam,
I loved your pie in the sky stuff:

"I've never understood how you can argue for free trade without arguing for free labour mobility"

"I would be interested to know what might be the effects of much freer migration on the world's population, energy consumption etc"

You might actually have stumbled onto something. There is another line that - horse and carriage like - goes together real well with your first two.

"Think globally, act locally"

Put 'em together and what have you got bibbidi-bobbidi-boo

Tell ya what:you tell us where you live and I'll gather up a couple hundred of that cities " tired,...poor...homeless and tempest tossed" and deliver them to your door.

That would at least distribute the cities population of down-and-outs along more equitable lines.And I'd wager, it would pretty much mirror what would happen on a national scale, with "free labour mobility"

So come on [Sam], let's make it happen, because yes [you]can.

But I suspect your wont have much pie-in-the-sky stuff left after they raid your pantry.

Hey wow, someone actually replied!

Unfortunately SPQR, you've completely missed the point, which is: we're all in this together. Think globally, act globally.

Mass migration's going to happen anyway sooner or later so I just think we might as well prepare for it and manage it properly.

'spose I'll just have to find someone else to discuss this with...

Sam;
In the first case, the legality is perfectly sound, and it boils down to how well voters and constituents can influence the politician's thought processes. And either way you look at it, the voters are the people that must reap the consequences of the decisions.

Secondly, on global issues, the simple answer is that by refusing and preventing people from overpopulated areas from moving to places with a lower population, the overpopulation and corresponding destabilization is isolated into those nations where the population is unstable, while the countries that did the right thing reap the benefits of their responsible practices; the alternative is that people that tried to manage themselves responsibly are punished by being forced to shoulder and reward the very people that did the wrong thing at their own permanent expense.
More importantly, when these low-populated countries improve their consumption and pollution patterns, they personally stand to benefit- rather than merely offset the burden that others are placing on them- and the environmental impact is actually reduced- not merely spread among more people.
The result is, people in low-populated countries actually have a REAL motive to do the right thing for population and consumption, as their environment improves with the global environment as far as their corresponding actions go.

The solution lies in raising the conditions in the Third World so that peoples of those nations can enjoy the same opportunities and services of the First World. Overpopulation is one of the problems from an environmental position, moving populations around might work to a certain extent but it is bandaid stuff until the causes and effects are addressed.

Trouble is where to start?

I tend to think the world is going through some sort of evolutionary process at the moment in a number of spheres: the effects of Western interventions, civil war, access to information via the internet, increases in those seeking asylum (mainly movements from East to West), tensions from fear of multiculturalism and religious differenes. How it will end is still not clear.