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The Forum > Article Comments > Reforming immigration policy: a libertarian suggestion > Comments

Reforming immigration policy: a libertarian suggestion : Comments

By Jonathan J. Ariel, published 8/5/2015

Why not sell the right to immigrate?

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Immigration to Australia by entry fee sounds good to me. Australia offers benefits of political stability, generous welfare safety-net, space and warm climate that are worth a high price.

Hopefully it will become a long term program with bi-partisan support. I think however the ALP and Greens will reject it - so support of independents like Senator Leyonhjelm will be pivotal.

Too often the ALP has relied on stacking electorates with family reunions who will loyally vote Labor. So if/when Labor wins the 2016 Federal Election will a new entry fee immigration policy be tossed out?
Posted by plantagenet, Friday, 8 May 2015 11:33:47 AM
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A society has every right to impose whatever conditions it asks for membership - including charging a fee.

However, no society has a right over vast, mostly undeveloped, stretches of land, such as the Australian continent, including the right to impose conditions over entry and residence.

By all means, it is a good idea to charge a fee from people who want to join the Australian society and the social benefits that come with it, but one may not charge (or otherwise condition) others merely for entering this continent.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Friday, 8 May 2015 11:34:40 AM
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Giday Yuyutsu

Your odd statement:

"However, no society has a right over vast, mostly undeveloped, stretches of land, such as the Australian continent, including the right to impose conditions over entry and residence"

begs questioning.

Are you suggesting that the UN (or some other none Australian process) should decide who populates Australia's (mostly water-resource poor) vast open spaces.

Or should it be terra nullius* and therefore open to whatever squatters row their canoes, or rickety refugee boats, to Australia?

Genuinely curious.

Pete

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_nullius
Posted by plantagenet, Friday, 8 May 2015 11:51:07 AM
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Dear Pete,

Certainly not the UN or any other organisation has a right to determine where people can or should live.

Anyone should be able to arrive in the continent of Australia (subject to determination that they do not pose criminal and/or health risks), but unless they comply with the conditions and demands of Australian society they would have no social or civil rights and their legal status would be similar to that of animals.

Feral animals are not allowed in cities, unless adopted as pets by fully-responsible owners; they have no recourse to health and social services (their owner could of course pay a vet if they wish); they have no standing in court; they cannot have property registered in their name (in fact, they don't even need to have a name!); and if they become a nuisance on the land, destroying property, crops or livestock, then farmers should be allowed to shoot them (conforming to the best RSPCA laws and practices against unnecessary cruelty to animals).

In summary, humans must not be treated worse than other animals.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Friday, 8 May 2015 12:10:35 PM
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Dear Yuyutsu

Where you say "Anyone should be able to arrive in the continent of Australia (subject to..."

This is the nub of the chicken de egg issue. If someone speedily rows their outrigger to Australia it be bloody difficult to dislogde them without herds of Public Servants and worse still, Lawyers! (excuse the French tah).

Should there be some biological warfare solution like Myxomatosis for humans I hear you say.

Well Apartheid South Africa was accused of many anti-social things but they were nothing if not creative.

Zee answer the Productivity Commission has been working on is an Oz version of "Project Coast".

Before the foibles of peace and humanity triumphed the Projekt involved:

"Research on birth control methods to reduce the black birth rate. Herr Doktor Dirk von Blitz-Abbott, Managing Director, Rootplease Research Laboratories between 1983 and 1986, told Tom Mangold of the BBC that Project Coast supported a project to develop a contraceptive that would have been applied clandestinely to black peoples.

Blitz-Abbott reported that the project had developed a vaccine for males and females and that the researchers were still searching for a means by which it could be delivered to make blacks sterile without making them aware.

Testimony given at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) suggested that Project Coast researchers were also looking into putting birth control substances in water supplies."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Coast#As_a_component_of_racial_warfare

Permanent solution to rampant refugees who rave? Not yet Liberal Party policy but Tony and main squeeze Peta are working on it.
Posted by plantagenet, Friday, 8 May 2015 12:49:03 PM
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Don't we do that already Jon?

I mean for the self funded retiree immigrant, there are all sorts of conditions, including self sustaining retirement (pay to stay) funding!

I mean why are we trying to sell or privatize everything not nailed down; all while turning our collective backs, thanks to blinkered leaders, on self terminating thirty year bonds?

Which would I'm sure, in today's climate, be far more popular among self funded retirees, than almost any other form of investment?

And which would guarantee, a known return for at least thirty years.

There are millions of well to do, self funded retirees all over Europe, trying to find a more hospitable home for themselves and their accrued and already taxed funds; due to the possibility, these savings/earnings, may be taxed yet again?

Even so, they already pay a VAT, that is hovering a round 15% on everything, in some countries?

If we but had the wisdom to create a single stand alone tax system, like an expenditure tax, that hit you just once; and everybody fairly, we'd likely attract many millions of cashed up Caucasian Christian retirees, who just want to know where they stand!

We should roll out publicly provided energy solutions, which at the least, halved the price of electricity.

Self funded retirees replete with mandatory private health insurance, don't need to have schools/child care centres built near them, bring serious and increasing demand for low skill services, take up the huge slack in private health care; and spend their income in the local economy!

Which by the way, sent Q'ld surging ahead when Joh abolished (spend a sprat to catch a mackerel) death duties!

And retirees, would likely settle where the housing doesn't cost an arm or a leg? Another plus!

And as such all but created the relatively new, built entirely in my lifetime. Gold and Sunshine Coasts!
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Friday, 8 May 2015 1:00:15 PM
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The 'pay to enter' scheme sounds alright, as long as no other means of immigration is allowed. Family reunion, for example, is absolute nonsense. If immigration is not in Australia's best interest, it should not occur. At the moment we are letting in stupid numbers, without work to go to, despite the fact that Australians are not able to find work.

Pay for entry should still only occur when the payers have work to go to.

The farce that is the 'refugee' intake should also cease, and to hell with the United Nations, a useless meddler in sovereignty if ever there was one. That is unlikely to happen under our gutless and self-serving politicians who are into identity politics and vote buying instead of looking after Australia. Australia's contribution to fighting Islamists in backward countries doesn't entitle anyone to come here from those countries. Even the outdated refugee agreement does not name war as a reason to seek asylum, and it is quite clear that the illegals arriving before the current government stopped them were economically driven, and a real burden on our economy, as are most of those previously allowed to stay.
Posted by ttbn, Friday, 8 May 2015 1:02:04 PM
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Why not?
Because there too many people here now in this arid, water deficient continent.
Posted by ateday, Friday, 8 May 2015 1:35:51 PM
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Plantagenet

You’re spot on in recognising that the ALP and the Greens will reject any program that puts Australia’s national interest ahead of their own interest.

Yuyutsu

I join Plantagenet (Pete) in querying your comment

“However, no society has a right over vast, mostly undeveloped, stretches of land, such as the Australian continent, including the right to impose conditions over entry and residence”.

While I do not follow your logic, I do second your claim that

“In summary, humans must not be treated worse than other animals”.
Posted by Jonathan J. Ariel, Saturday, 9 May 2015 8:27:25 PM
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Rhosty

You ask “Don't we do that already Jon”?

I have not studied the terms and conditions imposed on seniors migrating here. If what you say is correct, viz:

“I mean for the self funded retiree immigrant, there are all sorts of conditions, including self sustaining retirement (pay to stay) funding!”

Then that’s just peachy. That is as it should be. After all, imagine the doors to Australia swinging open willy-nilly allowing countless seniors into Australia, without health checks and without demands on their finances? With no hurdles imposed on entry, many with chronic and rare diseases - the treatment for which is very costly – would make a beeline to Australia,

As to your comment,

“There are millions of well to do, self funded retirees all over Europe, trying to find a more hospitable home for themselves and their accrued and already taxed funds; due to the possibility, these savings/earnings, may be taxed yet again?”

If they resettle in Australia, surely they must not be a financial burden on “native” Australian taxpayers, which means they should not be able to avail themselves of health, welfare and such services. In addition to such requirements, is it unjustified to ask for an entry fee?

Your point on attracting “many millions of cashed up Caucasian Christian retirees” is worthy of a (supportive) essay on its own.

If by

“We should roll out publicly provided energy solutions, which at the least, halved the price of electricity” you are speaking in favour of public ownership of monopolistic utilities rather than have them owned by rent seeking private operators, what can I say? We’re singing from the same songsheet.
Posted by Jonathan J. Ariel, Saturday, 9 May 2015 8:28:52 PM
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Dear Jonathan,

I don't think that Plantagenet (Pete) was querying my comment, rather he added his own ideas from a different angle, so I chose to leave it at that.

So here is what I wrote:

“However, no society has a right over vast, mostly undeveloped, stretches of land, such as the Australian continent, including the right to impose conditions over entry and residence”.

What is it about it which you find difficult to follow?

From a moral perspective, an upper limit on what any society may legitimately do, is the sum of what all its [voluntary] members may legitimately do. In other words, just because a group of people decides between them to organise, does not give them extra powers over others outside their group beyond the sum of powers they already held individually.

So, if despite the large number of individuals involved (even if we assume that they all are voluntary members of the society in question, which in fact is not the case), most of the land remains undeveloped and could not be claimed in the natural sense as "mine" by any of them, then neither can that land be legitimately claimed to belong to the group (even if it calls itself "society" or "nation").

Please note this subtle distinction: a given society may create its own internal rules and bookkeeping system as to who owns which property and which areas are to be "common", etc. and those rules can be simple or complex, natural or unnatural as they choose, yet this applies only within that society and doesn't grant the society as a whole further rights outside what is naturally and morally its own.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Sunday, 10 May 2015 12:32:19 AM
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Hi Yuyutsu

I do, in fact, query your claim "However, no society has a right over vast, mostly undeveloped, stretches of land, such as the Australian continent, including the right to impose conditions over entry and residence”.

As well a nation's basic rejection that its territory is terra nullius there it the centuries old concept of Sovereinty. It is well identified under international law that Sovereinty applies to border security and immigration.

Are you also saying that non-Australians should be permitted to arrive in Australia and breach Aboriginal land claims over much of Australia?

Or are the majority of Australian (who are non-Aborigines) less equal?

Pete
Posted by plantagenet, Sunday, 10 May 2015 1:31:34 PM
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Dear Pete,

"International law", as the name suggests, is based on agreements between nations - it thus has no application over those who did not freely choose to belong to this nation or the other which together agreed to establish this law.

That the concept of "sovereignty" is several centuries old doesn't make it any more moral: the concepts of burning witches and sacrificing children, for example, lasted for millennia - does it make them right?

I certainly do not believe that people of aboriginal descent have any more "rights" than others. No person of any race or birth-place should be prevented from finding and settling in some unoccupied and undeveloped land, anywhere on this planet.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Sunday, 10 May 2015 2:26:43 PM
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Hi Yuyutsu

Australians decide what people can come to Australia.

Just like Israel, we have not surrendered our national rights.

Pete
Posted by plantagenet, Sunday, 10 May 2015 3:30:36 PM
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Dear Pete,

There are no national rights above and beyond the sum of rights which the individuals who willingly belong to the nation in question have bestowed upon their nation.

In the case of Australia, even the people of Australia do not get to decide anything because it is all decided by a handful of politicians and bureaucrats. In fact, most of the people of Australia were never even asked whether or not they agree to belong to the "nation" which calls itself "Australian" after the name of this continent.

You seem to confuse the might of the sword with legitimate moral rights. Almost every "nation" both today and through history abuses its powers and grabs lands which do not belong to it - I just disagree that "might makes right".

Since you mentioned Israel (why?), there are areas within it which were legitimately bought and developed by Jews, who dried up the inhospitable marshes and turned them into gardens, yet there are other areas of Israel that were taken by force, so it's a mixed bag. At least, unlike Australia, it's quite difficult to find in Israel areas that are still undeveloped and uninhabited.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Sunday, 10 May 2015 5:50:27 PM
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Dear Yuyutsu

The distinctions you draw and philosophical approach you take are yours.

Mine are mine.

I think we could debate between our different positions forever.

Cheers :)

Pete
Posted by plantagenet, Sunday, 10 May 2015 7:29:49 PM
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