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 Even the outdated refugee agreement does not name war as a reason to seek asylum, and it is quite clear that the illegals arriving before the current government stopped them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.

Why not?
Because there too many people here now in this arid, water deficient continent.

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”.

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.

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.

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