Most sensible analysis of the refugees issue I have read yet Mirko.
Yes we should be helping the poorest, most needy refugees, not the most pushy.

"......... Rudd must also state that plane arrivals will not be eligible for refugee settlement. He should then increase the humanitarian intake to at least 40,000 and fill all of these places with those subsisting on the margins of life in refugee camps"......totally agree.

Keating and others started the 'we want the rich and pushy' trend by allowing in migrants who had 200,000 plus to invest.

This is the opposite of the policies that brought our best migrants - post war refugees wanting to start a new life and willing to work at anything to do it.

Similarly I think 'those subsisting on the margins of life...' would make better migrants than those with the money to pay for boats and certainly better than those that can pay for air tickets.

The number you quote - 43m refugees - it's a stupendously cruel and huge problem. Australia can only solve so much of it and help make life better in the countries from which the rest want to escape - through appropriate aid.

My guess is that New Guinea will soon be New Indonesia if the boat arrivals continue in those numbers. There'll be mosques popping up all over the island.
I wonder how many silverlings Rudd got for that.

There are some details of Rudd's scheme that I still trying to clarify. Is it correct the before being granted permanent residence in New Guinea the boat people will have to have a bone through their nose?

This from Anthony Lowenstein in The Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/22/vulture-capitalism-papua-new-guinea-australia#comment-25338131

>>Veteran ABC journalist Sean Dorney rightly worries about social cohesion in PNG with the inevitable influx of thousands of people>>

Rightly worried about social cohesion?

So let me get this straight. When someone in Australia raises the issue of "social cohesion" in a debate about immigration or asylum seeker intake they are "racists" and "Islamo-phobes"?

But when an ABC reporter raises the same issue with regard to PNG…?

"Social Cohesion" was the justification for the White Australia policy.

This from the ABC.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's fresh asylum seeker deal to 'shock' Papua New Guineans:

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/2013-07-19/prime-minister-kevin-rudds-fresh-asylum-seeker-deal-to-shock-papua-new-guineans/1164060

Quote:

>>There is also the issue of culture shock - likely from both sides. Many of these people found to be genuine refugees will have little in common with Papua New Guineans.

PNG is overwhelmingly Christian.>>

Australia is overwhelmingly Christian / secular.

Summary of what I heard on ABC radio this morning:

They sent a reporter around asking the locals what they thought about this. The reaction was uniformly negative except for a small crowd outside a mosque.

Many locals worried about an influx of Muslims.

Interesting.

Full disclosure:

I don't think immigration per se destroys social cohesion.

Multiculturalism does.

It is not politically brilliant at all, it is racist garbage.

Marilyn Shepherd, Monday, 22 July 2013 4:07:49 PM:

>>It is not politically brilliant at all, it is racist garbage.>>

LOL

The two are not mutually exclusive.