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The Forum > Article Comments > Refugees: realism v righteousness > Comments

Refugees: realism v righteousness : Comments

By Syd Hickman, published 31/1/2012

The UN refugee convention has outlived its context.

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Syd Hickman - I have no quibble with the main thrust of the article but you make an assumption that there will be increasing internaional distress, and that distress will lead to more refugees.

Was recently looking at the figures for refugees collected by the UNHCR and a major surprise is how stable they are - they dipped about 05-06 and then bounced back, but I'm not sure that the figures mean anything much. If you look through the commission's latest report one obvious point is that once someone becomes a refugee they tend to stay that way for years, hence the stablity in the figures.

Is there any sign of an increasing unstable international situation? Of course there are countries with lots of problems but basically the overall story is one of a world settling down from a post-cold war shake up.

You mention climate, but you have to assume that the climate foprecasts are not only correct, but right at the top of the forecast range, to get the sort of refugee surges you seem to be expecting. Despite all the screaming you see in the media there is no real indication of anything more than below mid range, at best.. See the recent report by the UK Met Office..
Posted by Curmudgeon, Tuesday, 31 January 2012 10:21:20 AM
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The title of your article itself hints that you may feel at least a twinge of guilt about advocating a "pull up the ladder Jack" view, which you claim is realism.

Although many people would agree with you that righteousness and realism are at odds, I would not.

Like you, I do see that our current economy and lifestyles could not accomodate large increses in population, but unlike you I do not see our current economy or lifestyles as sustainable, whether or not we build a vast defence force to enforce our borders and protect our priviledged status.

I believe righteousness and reality are necessarily complimentary. This means that the solution to social, economic and environmental challenges, which even the blind can now see is urgently needed, lies in us making changes which are both righteous and realistic (see - http://on.fb.me/z94GNX )
Posted by landrights4all, Tuesday, 31 January 2012 11:53:36 AM
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Ofcourse there will always be real refugees who need to be dealt with sympathetically and allowed to settle elsewhere. Those who are flying in and on "leaky boats" come with suitcases full of American dollars. These are the problem. They are not real refugees but people who seek to exploit the countries where they DEMAND to be settled.They should be kicked out ASAP. Bring in the Burmese and Africans. Wihdraw from an outmoded Refugees Convention we might have once signed up on. It is outmoded.Does not apply in the present historical/political context.

We need to show some courage and intelligence to do this. As for those who jump up on their soap boxes to moralise...well,kick the soap boxes from under them.

socratease
Posted by socratease, Tuesday, 31 January 2012 12:17:28 PM
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Tony Abbott would win the next election purely upon the basis of him declaring that Australia will withdraw from the UN convention on refugees. Australian/Australians are fed up our country being invaded by people from grossly overpopulated countries who can not get their population increases under control, because they have religious or cultural abjections to birth control and abortion.
Posted by LEGO, Tuesday, 31 January 2012 3:31:56 PM
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Syd Hickman has brought some badly needed realism into this debate. Countries have borders and allow their citizens to protect their collective property from intruders for exactly the same reasons that landrights4all is allowed to have exclusive possession of his house, car, garden, and other personal property, and even to call on the power of the State to help him if a random stranger decides that he would like to come into landrights' house to doss down or help himself to landrights' laptop or family jewelry. No one would work to create or build anything if random strangers who hadn't contributed could simply horn in on it. No one accuses landrights of having an "I'm all right, Jack" attitude for not wanting to share all his personal property.

Australia is not just a geographic location occupied by people who were simply lucky enough to get in early. It is a decent place to live because our ancestors and predecessors built it and because we are working to keep it that way. Each new arrival gets to share in hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of infrastructure and is unlikely to contribute enough to pay for it for decades - if ever. See this article on infrastructure costs

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/39930.html

and this one about the costs of mass migration in the UK.

http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/6869/1/MPRA_paper_6869.pdf

landrights4all wants to give away something that isn't his to give. The Haber-Bosch process (developed in Germany) and the Green Revolution (largely an American effort) doubled and in some cases tripled food production in the 20th century. It is hardly our fault and no reason why most of us should be forced into Third World poverty (because landrights4all thinks we should share) if people in poor countries simply chose to put the gains into more babies and to hang on to the dysfunctional cultural patterns that were keeping them poor in the first place. I am not saying that we shouldn't help where we can, but it is only possible to help people, rather than enabling them, if they are willing to help themselves.
Posted by Divergence, Tuesday, 31 January 2012 6:27:58 PM
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I admire Curmudgeon's blind optimism that things are going to get better on the illegal immigrant front, but consider that the basic facts are against him.

First, each year there are around 70 million more people in the world, and around 100 million fewer acres of agricultural land to grow food on.

Second, peak oil, which we are either at or very close to, will be followed shortly by peak food.

Third, the oil shortage is causing a considerable proportion of the world corn crop to be used to make ethanol for use in vehicles, making the food crisis even more pronounced. This has already resulted in the doubling of the basic food price in countries like Egypt, and this price rise was the main factor behind the recent riots.

Fourth, those emerging countries like China who have money are eating more meat, consuming a larger proportion of the available grain.

Fifth, the whole world seems about to plunge into a major depression, which will cause the number of people living in poverty and misery to increase even more.

Sixth, the rapid spread of modern technology in the third would will make it obvious to all that people in Australia are very much better off than them.

None of this is new. History shows repeatedly that when the population outgrows its food supply nature will send in the four horsemen (War, Famine, Pestilence and Death) to correct the figures.

We are in for a very brutal, miserable (outside Australia), war-torn century.

Thank heavens we have a sea boundary!
Posted by plerdsus, Tuesday, 31 January 2012 10:40:54 PM
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The author is of course, quite correct. The UN Convention is
60 years out of date, so today, rather then help the most
deserving, we are suckers for anyone who can tell a good sob
story. Meantime genuine refugees without two bob to their name,
are left stranded in refugee camps.

Given that the human population keeps increasing at the rate
of 250'000 people a day and as the planet becomes more crowded,
the problem can only get worse.

Our feelgood Kumbaya crowd might take the high moral ground,
but they refuse to answer the question of how many millions
Australia should take, to satisfy their emotional needs. Far
easier to ignore that question.

The reality is that Australia cannot save the world and its
pointless trashing Australia by overcrowding. We are an arid
country with extremely poor soils, we forget this at our peril.

Withdrawing from the Convention and applying or own rules makes
perfect rational sense. But so do abortion and euthanasia. Yet
politicians do their best to avoid these topics, for they know
that the political onslaught of the emotionally engulfed will be
so great and so risky politically, that its easier to apply
another sticky tape measure and kick the can down the road for
the next lot. So we have the mess that we have now and clearly
that will continue, as everyone keeps kicking cans for another
day.Call it political expediancy if you will.
Posted by Yabby, Tuesday, 31 January 2012 10:44:38 PM
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So right Divergence. Lack of a private property is one of the main reasons that places like PNG are such a failure.

They have the onetalk system. Their 700 languages, with 1100 dialects mean you have a limited number of onetalks, [people of the same dialect]. You are obliged to give anything you have to a onetalk, if they need/want it. Your private property is only what you can carry in your little coconut fond woven shoulder bag.

No one aspires to more than a portable radio, when your car, if you had one, can be used by anyone in the village.

This is a very good system in a near stone age population, with interdependence best for most, but it is an utter failure in a modern society. It is a bit hard to be a merchant, when you must give your stock to any onetalk who asks for it.
Posted by Hasbeen, Tuesday, 31 January 2012 11:16:15 PM
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I congratulate, you, Yabby.
Please take his ideas seriously,guys and dolls.Everyone thinks he/she has the real insights.Yabby is the realist.
Good on ya Yabbs.

socratease
Posted by socratease, Wednesday, 1 February 2012 12:01:18 AM
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He is wrong on every level.

1. people who are refugees in other countries were once "illegal immigrants' who arrived to ask for asylum, therefore once they have refugee protection in that country they are double dipping by asking to go to the 20 nations with resettlement.
2. there is no quota under the refugee convention in any country and as only 0.0001% come here I don't understand why Sid and others think we should exchange an obligation for a voluntary scheme for double dippers.
3. we spend almost all the money on jailing innocent people, not on assessing anything - we could save $1 billion a year if we were not so racist and ignorant.
4. we will not withdraw from the convention and all the whining and nagging that it was for post war Europeans forgets the protocol ratified in 1967 which extended the convention and it's rights to all refugees in any situation.

For heaven's sake, Australia is so pathetic and whiney - but the sickness only extends to the minority who come by sea.

The vast majority are the frauds who fly here and are not refugees, most who come by sea are refugees so we would be denying safety to refugees who ask in favour of those who ask some other nation.

Honestly I do wish these prattling nonsensical racist articles would stop being written.

Last year just 4500 people arrived here by sea - 103,000 go to Yemen without them whinging like we do.
Posted by Marilyn Shepherd, Wednesday, 1 February 2012 2:51:02 AM
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[Deleted for abuse.]
Posted by Marilyn Shepherd, Wednesday, 1 February 2012 2:53:47 AM
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And Syd, the EXCOM is only for signatory nations, why do you think they would bother with the only nation on earth to ever decide to give up on refugee protections.
Posted by Marilyn Shepherd, Wednesday, 1 February 2012 2:55:29 AM
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Got news for you, Maralyn Shepherd, every western country on Earth is fed up of illegal immigrants barging their way into their countries, and there are now anti immigration movements everywhere. Even the neo Nazis are polling well in Germany and screaming "Auslander, raus!" If you refuse to recognise that people do have a right to protect their own territories, what else do you expect?

Europe has finally figured out that it is broke and can no longer aford to allow people barge into their societies in order to loot their social welfare systems and fill their jails. Comapassion and tolerence is wonderful if you can afford to indulge your vanities. But if the wealth you have is the result of living on your credit card, then you had better reasses your priorities, protect your own, and demand that the rest of the world to get their population increases under control.

I would just love to see the elected leaders of the world go and tell the Catholic Church's leaders that their policies against birth control equate to insanity.
Posted by LEGO, Wednesday, 1 February 2012 3:47:50 AM
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LEGO, we don't have illegal immigrants in this country, we have some people who don't have visas and there is no offence involved in not having a visa.

To get a visa people have to be able to have passports, if the person or country or government won't allow them to get passports because they would rather kill them we do not get to punish people because their own government persecutes them.

And Europe is not us, they in fact have millions of illegal workers crossing borders every year while we are whining endlessly about 12 people a day.
Posted by Marilyn Shepherd, Wednesday, 1 February 2012 2:08:28 PM
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Marilyn,

Have you ever heard of dealing with a small problem before it becomes a big problem? Read Christopher Caldwell's book "Reflections on the Revolution in Europe" on how asylum seeking snowballed there. There were half a million asylum claims in the UK between 1997 and 2004, not counting dependants who arrived later. Only 23% of claims were found to be genuine, including after appeal. Another 14% were given exceptional leave to remain, sometimes for humanitarian reasons, but often because of the practical impossibility of deporting them. All the rest of these people, the vast majority, were failed asylum seekers, and only 75,000 of them (24%) were removed.

http://www.migrationwatchuk.org/briefingPaper/document/108

"The UNHCR has acknowledged that by the early 1990s the vast majority of asylum seekers in Western countries were economic migrants."

http://www.aph.gov.au/library/Pubs/cib/1999-2000/2000cib13.htm

It can be practically impossible to deport people when they have destroyed their travel documents and we can't establish where they are from. Even if we can, their home country can always refuse to take them back. As the Immigration Minister has said, this is a constant problem with Iran. The whole point of Syd Hickman's article is that it can happen here too, and the problem is likely to escalate due to global overpopulation and environmental damage. We are concerned about writing a blank cheque, when we have no idea of the possible numbers, even of genuine refugees, and even more so, if we are going to be stuck with any economic migrants who falsely claim to be refugees.

The distinction between boat and plane arrivals is that the airline is held financially responsible if they transport people without valid travel documents. Passengers with proper documents can still claim asylum here, but can be sent back if their claims are rejected.
Posted by Divergence, Wednesday, 1 February 2012 4:31:50 PM
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How do they get into Indonesia without passport, Maralyn?
Posted by LEGO, Thursday, 2 February 2012 4:00:27 AM
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