>>I am sure, Matt Moran, that this suggestion of a WORKABLE solution to their problem will delight e.g. the Somali refugees in Lampedusa who just survived a capsized boat, and before that escaped Islamist thugs in their home country...

George, the issue here is that it's precisely because the warnings on overpopulation have been ignored that these situations are getting progressively worse. Bear in mind that boat arrivals have been going on for decades so this is not a new issue and it isn't going to go away anytime soon.

Further, boat arrivals are escalating dramatically. Population pressures invariably splinter along cultural lines as very few see things from a population perspective - after all, the major institutionalized religions have been engaging in population control for millennia by poisoning the water on family planning efforts - this of course hasn't been helped by earlier governments engaging in draconian policies on one hand, and other governments using boat arrivals as a political football.

The problem now is that the issue has been left unchecked for so long, that the numbers are becoming unmanageable and the vulnerable people in the wealthier countries increasingly neglected. Subsequently, you end up in a situation that we have - between a rock and a hard place.

But there is no solution that doesn't start with addressing population pressures. To give some relative costing, for what it costs to process a single person in a developed country, thousands can immediately be helped in situ (and subsequently orders of magnitude more).

Working in this way firstly gives hope in these countries where for the most part none is available, secondly, it has been shown how quickly purchasing power increases with declining fertility rates (and we are talking from 6 children down to 2). This coupled with current programs in place would start to make a difference very quickly. Of course it would have been better if world leaders had acted decades ago but far too many think it's development that lifts people out of poverty when we now know that it's the lowering of fertility rates.

<< I think Australia should withdraw from the UN Convention. This would in no way restrict Australia's ability to accept refugees. It would allow the government to do what both major parties are trying to do, which is, set the numbers and conditions for onshore refugee applicants, just as they do for offshore refugees, and all non-refugee immigrants. It would enable the hundreds of millions now being wasted on Manus Island to go to better causes. >>

Yes! Well said Jardine.

Matt Moran,

I do not necessarily disagree with what you wrote as “the issue here”. Only that it is useless as an immediately applicable (workable) solution to the problem of the present refugees in Lampedusa (and elsewhere in Europe) horrified at the threat of being forcefully “repatriated”, coupled with the economic and social problems of the receiving countries with limited capabilities to absorb large numbers of them.

One amusing thing in all this is the fact that the more successful Ms. Tranter is in imposing her favored folk, the Muslims on us, the sooner she will be banished to the kitchen, wearing a tent.

These fools think that as elites they will be treated differently, but they will be the first to be subdued, once Sharia law is established. Girls & education are not permitted.

"George, the issue here is that it's precisely because the warnings on overpopulation have been ignored that these situations are getting progressively worse."

Matt, I don't think that's true. I have done a lot of refugee cases in my time and in fact have not long come back from doing cases on Manus Island. This makes me privy to all their reasons for leaving their country.

The cause of refugee status is a risk of being persecuted. It's got nothing to do with overpopulation per se. For example, in Afghanistan the Pashtuns, who are Sunnis, hate the Hazaras, who are Shias. It's a straight-out case of racial and religious prejudice.

In Pakistan, the conflict is between the Sunnis and the Shias.

In Iran, the government is run by God's representatives on earth, and apparently God wants them to hang and beat and torture people for all sorts of religious offences, such as homosexuality, drugs, apostasy, fornication, adultery and so on.

In Sri Lanka, there's an age old ethnic conflict between the Sinhalese and the Tamils.

The flow of refugees is caused by racial, religious, political and social intolerance.

It's facile to say it's population pressure. The population of New York or Glasgow is much higher than in the hills of Afghanistan or rural Sri Lanka, but we don't have refugees coming from those places of "overpopulation" do we?

The two aren't mutually exclusive Jardine indeed we are by and large trying to elevate the status of women from entrenched patriarchal cultures. But I think you might like to view the film Mother: caring for 7 billion. For the most part, it's that people don't know any better as we see in Egypt. But things can turn around very quickly when the right environment is fostered.