what's their view of an upstart whitey telling them they can't have any kids 'cause we gotta save the environment'?

Err Boylesy, its best to examine the facts before you jump to conclusions. Obviously you mindlessly support the eco-sustainability driven model of the world, which as I said, is the latest iteration of the discredited Malthusian principle from the 18th Century. The world population has multiplied numerous times since then yet there is still more than enough food. In fact, in the past excess food has been dumped at sea.

The problem for both you and the author is that neither of you want additional people in this country, yet you wish to distance yourselves from Tony Abbott, who wants to stem the flow of boat people, just as you do. The squirming is interesting to watch. My question is how can you guys be 'compassionate' when you don't want babies or immigrants?

Nice article William.

We take only a small number of refugees - especially when you consider that those evil Iranians had two million Afghan refugees some years back (or are they still there?).

Or should we include in Australia's refugee numbers those NZ geniuses that flee discrimination from their hyper-intelligent former compatriots?

80,000 people in each year is still a decent number - 1/4 the population of Canberra. Makes you wonder what all the howling from the anti-"anti-pops" is about.

an upstart whitey telling them they can't have any kids 'cause we gotta save the environment'
Cheryl,
From evidence past & present do you think the indigenous would fare better under a fundamentalist regime ?
Anyhow, I was after an answer not another question.

@Marilyn

<<What we are doing here is effectively paying hundreds of millions to SANCTION actual queue jumping of refugees who have protection already in an attempt to appease ourselves.>>

Well said –at last we agree on something – as long as the meaning of “sanction” is taken to be :”Support or encouragement”

Our approach to the whole issue only encourages both illegal immigrants and their joint venture partners the people smugglers.
We don’t need elaborate expensive border controls. All we need is an assessment and review process which instead granting anyone who has no papers benefit of the doubt, only passes claimants who can prove their identity and their claim.

We have Atman telling us that "Malthus was wrong", even though the Irish Potato Famine and the Rwanda genocide are pretty good evidence that Malthus was right. There are abundant other examples of societies that collapsed because they overexploited their environment or failed to maintain adequate safety margins. See for example "Dirt: the Erosion of Civilizations" by Prof. David Montgomery (Soil Science, University of Washington). In Atman's mind, all these examples are cancelled out because Paul Ehrlich and some other scientists in the 1960s were unable to predict the success of the Green Revolution. Unlike the 1960s, we now face problems on a large numbet of fronts, not just poor agricultural productivity, and a technological solution to problem A may make problems B and C worse. Who should we believe? Atman, who says everything is rosy? Or scientists who publish in Nature?

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7263/full/461472a.html

open version:

http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/iss2/art32/

Cheryl? Or the German military analysts, who are warning about civilisational collapse in the medium term in the Bundeswehr report?

http://baobab2050.org/2011/09/04/bundeswehr-peak-oil-report-now-officially-translated-in-english/

Main points:

http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2011-06-13/review-bundeswehr-report-peak-oil-section-22-tipping-point-nov-2010

On the main topic, it is pretty clear that the government, with the encouragement of media outlets such as The Australian, has been pursuing a tough on boat people policy to make themselves look strong on border protection and deflect attention from the huge legal immigration intake. All the same, the example of Europe shows that the situation can snowball, so we need to be vigilant. Since we can't take all the refugees, I would prefer that we first take people who stuck their necks out to bring their country into the modern world, such as someone who set up a girl's school in Afghanistan, rather than on the basis of who can pay a people smuggler and tell a convincing (and uncheckable) story. The 1951 Refugee Convention isn't sacred.