Okay, let's run through it again.

There are sixty million refugees around the world, and maybe another twenty million displaced persons.

By all means, double the annual refugee intake.

Many of us have deep compassion for the 'line-of-sight' boat-people. Many of us say, let's welcome them to Australia. But let's look at the logic of that position:

* if we should take all those who arrive here by leaky boat, having paid exorbitant fees to smugglers, then what about people arriving on quite sea-worthy boats after having paid fairly reasonable fees to smugglers ?

* If that's okay, then why put people to the trouble of getting on a boat ?

* If that's okay, then why can't we just accept whoever comes here by plane, after paying the standard economy fare ?

* And not just from Jakarta, but from anywhere ?

After all, there are probably only ten million, out of those sixty million genuine refugees, who could rake up the standard economy fare from their friends and relatives ?

OR - should policy focus on those refugees in the most dire of circumstances, regardless of whether or not they can pay ? Like the Rohingya, Syrians, people in those vast desolate camps in Africa ?

There's fifty million of them. But I suppose, as long as they stay out of sight.

Good policy means hard choices.

Shorten announcing that the labour party should now support the boat turn back policy was a classic example of how not to pursue politics. The best approach would have been to say, we don't know if the boat turn back policy is working due to the lack of information coming out of the present government. Therefore if the labour party were to be elected at the next election they should say we will review all the information before making any changes to the current arrangements.

Shorten by coming out in favour of the boat turn back policy all he has done is alienate some voters on the left who may now decide to vote green. Although there are may be a number of voters who voted liberal at the last election who have had it with the Abbott government It is unlikely that this issue will be significant for any previous liberal voters thinking of voting for labour,

Always funny to read an Lib/Nat talk about Labour, you get no insight into labour but plenty into the LIb/Nat.

The fact is any group of people are going to have a range of views. When you put yourself forward as a poly then you should be will to argue your point of view on it merits. You will not win the day every time.

Whats unfortunate about this piece is this young Lib/Nat has already got into the mode of operating that has cheapened our view of government. The idea isn't important, the outcome isn't important, it the way it's done. Ie any good change has to have your brand on it, any bad change has to have your opponents name on it.

That's while we see political groups support different views based on political convenience

How on earth anyone can bother disussing what Labor might or might not do is beyond me. We all know that if Labor, in its current form, is ever re-elected, we will have a carbon tax, a return of illegal boat arrivals, hick-Irish homosexual "marriage", and an economy on a par with Greece's. How many attacks of Labor politics you need before the penny drops?

At least Labor asks what the nation wants in terms of policy, not like the Abbott regime. Who did you say was the dictator.

All aspects have to be up for discussion in a truthful way of course, not like the last case of blatant fraud.
With expenditure we are not allowed to know about, It would be impossible to know what lies behind that policy, until it is busted open it is impossible to say if it is cost effective or not.
With 100 billion of new debt in 2 years we are blind at what cost overseas detention is costing.
We know Cambodia got 40 million for five refugees, 40 million goes a long long way there.
The boats are stopping, but not quite, we keep a supply of boats made in Vietnam in Darwin just in case. It will take an indepth enquiry into the whole shambols to get to the real cost's involved.

'At least Labor asks what the nation wants in terms of policy, not like the Abbott regime'

true Doog. Everyone wants more money, less taxes, more holidays, a good looking wife/husband, to be above the law, unlimited immigration as long as someone else pays, less hours of work, more expensive cars, more Government handouts, free medical, free education, more high paid abc jobs, no gaols, no crime.

Yep as long as you sell the public these things like Greece has for 40 years it shows you have 'vision'. Dream on.

"At least Labor asks what the nation wants in terms of policy, and then the union bosses controlling the factions decide what policy will apply and regardless of what the members think too"

There you are, fixed it for you.

How long must we have to wait for a major party to stop trying to deter refugees and instead try to profit from them?

Bill is simply trying to get rid of some of Labor's stinking baggage.

The vote losers are:

1 Debt
2 Carbon tax
3 Boats
4 Union corruption.

By chucking "asylum seekers" over board Bill thinks that maybe Labor won't be in opposition for a decade again.

The vote losers for the liberals are:-

1 Broken promises far too numerous to list
2 Abbott and his 3 word slogans
3 No vision for the future
4 Debt still increasing under liberals
5 Lack of fairness in budgets
6 Austerity policies
7 Treating the voters like mushrooms
8 A perception they only care about the big end of town.
9 Dubious travel allowances
10 Refusal to accept climate change
11 Trying to kill off renewable energy
12 Unemployment higher than under labor

It will be really interesting if a few of the more important policies do get the nod at this conference. I will enjoy watching some of the more reasonable lefties wrestle with the dilemma of changing their so often promoted ideas & beliefs to keep in line with their party policy.

It will of course be fun watching the ratbag lefties, some who have already posted here, squirm. I have often wondered how so many can hold all the ridiculous ideas of Labor/greens today.

I also find the names of many of the left rather interesting. Tanya Plibersek, Annastacia Palaszczuk do not have much of a Anglo ring.

This country suffered for too long due to Anglo politicians considering the UK as "home" & developing policies showing their loyalty to the UK was at least equal to their loyalty to Oz. It cost many Australians their lives.

From their position on illegal boat people, it is becoming obvious many lefties have very split loyalties. We have some loyalty to a different group of "home" countries, or regions. This will cost many Australians their well being, & some, perhaps many, their lives

There is no way anyone could believe admitting large numbers of illegals or real refugees is in any way advantageous to the existing population. A few may gain financial advantage from this flood, & some dumb politicians may see it as an easy way to generate growth, even at a cost to the existing population, but none could believe it improved anything here.

Warmair,

I gave policy areas that Labor have issues, you came up with your opinion of why you don't like the libs.

That Labor has lied consistently to the voters is on the record. Note that KRudd before 2007 promised to continue the pacific solution with boat turn backs if necessary, Just as Juliar promised no carbon tax.

Shadow
Actually I don't care weather the government is Liberal or Labor but I do care that who ever it is does a good job. While generally leaning to the left, I come from a very conservative background.
The items I have listed above are all in some way problems if the Liberals hope to be re-elected. Probably the most serious for the Libs is the fact people like Howard’s battlers, pensioners and those lower in the social order are now worse off than when the Libs took over.

Sorry any Lib complaining about Julia lying must be suffering severe memory loss. I seem to recall Abbott saying there would be No cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, and no cuts to the ABC or SBS.

ttbn says...

**How on earth anyone can bother disussing what Labor might or might not do is beyond me. We all know that if Labor, in its current form, is ever re-elected, we will have a carbon tax, a return of illegal boat arrivals, hick-Irish homosexual "marriage", and an economy on a par with Greece's. How many attacks of Labor politics you need before the penny drops?**

My ideas entirely...great thought!

Just to add to that first posting:

There are sixty million refugees around the world, all desperate for some minimal security and comfort. And another twenty million people displaced within their own countries, in similar situations. Eighty million.

Compassion dictates that we take as many as we can, particularly those we can see, those who sort of come over the horizon. People who come in leaky boats and who have paid exorbitant fees to smugglers, mainly in Indonesia. We should take all of those poor buggers ?

So, suppose a group of desperate people are intercepted on the high seas in quite a seaworthy boat ? That would be okay ?

If the policy was changed, so that we could take people in seaworthy boats, then the next question is: what if some private international agency, funded let's say by Bill Gates, sends seaworthy boats full of people who have paid just standard fares - a few hundred dollars or so ? Should they be eligible ?

If so, then why put them to the trouble of getting on boats and travelling across thousands of miles of open sea ? Why not let people fly direct from Jakarta, having paid standard commercial fares ?

If that was okay, then why not take whoever can fly here, from anywhere ?

Isn't that the logical outcome of a policy of accepting whoever wants to come here ?

Or is there some criterion that makes them 'more eligible' - only by boat ? Only by leaky boat ? Only if they have paid exorbitant fees on a leaky boat ? Not if they come by seaworthy boats and have paid standard fares ? Not if they simply fly here ? Where's the 'compassionate cut-off' ?

Or do we only think about the situation of those coming over the horizon ? Do we try not to think of those millions of others who will never afford such a dangerous passage, languishing in vast desert ghettoes for decades ? People who have applied through all the right agencies and waited their turn ?

Terrible choices.

WA,

You forget the endless promises and outright lies that Krudd made and broke,

Krudd promised
to keep the pacific solution and boat turnbacks,
to maintain fiscal responsibility and maintain a surplus as far as possible,
grocery watch,
Fuel watch etc,

Juliar promised
No carbon tax
An East timor solution,
A citizen's assembly.
etc,

In fact I can't find any promises they kept.

Shorten/labor
Is beholden to the unions ahead of business and the 83% of workers they don't represent,
Has no new policies in 20 months (except a reformed carbon tax)
Has no plan to manage the economy,
etc.

I am disgusted at Bill Shorten's big turnaround with this subject, even though I am not a labor supporter. I doubt it will make one bit of difference to his chances at the next election anyway.

Tanya Plibersek is the only bright star in that lot, but she has even less of a chance at the top job because she is a woman, and the Australian public is still too immature to deal with female leaders.

Loudmouth, you certainly pose some difficult questions that no one wants to answer!

I would go one further than you and say what would happen if it was a seaworthy boat chartered from England, full of white Christians who had had enough of England and wanted to jump the immigration Que.?
I have a strong suspicion they wouldn't be wooshed off to Nauru.....

If we say we won't take any of these desperate people who come here by boat or plane illegally, then we should send them back where they came from and instead take an equal number of poor refugees from the worst camps in the world, such as the Muslim Rohingas?
That's only fair isn't it?
Yeah right, and pigs will fly....

Here we go again;
"reflect the continents 'place' in Asia "

Now those with geographical ignorance hear this;
You have been deluded by the walls of your primary schools.
They displayed maps of the world in Mercator's Projection.
Australia is not in Asia, Asia is on the other side of the world.
Even Indonesia is not in Asia.

The shape of the world is distorted.
The degrees of latitude in the Northern Hemisphere are larger than in the Southern Hemisphere.
The whole thing is grossly distorted but millions believe otherwise.
Have you never wondered why it takes 8 hours to fly to Singapore,
after all it is just over from Darwin !

As far as refugees or rather to speak of the majority, the emigrants,
Egypt is facing a problem of ether asking the world to pay for the
support of half their population or accept 45 million emigrants as
they can no longer feed them without charity.
The Gulf states are kicking the tin at present but as we have recently
seen even Saudi Arabia is facing a financial problem due to its budget
restrictions due to low oil prices. Gulf Charity must dry up.

I want to see the Greens exploit the divisions in Labour by providing serious policy alternatives.

And I want the coalition to provide something more tangible than hot air when it comes to dealing with the unions, and I would say that one way to do that is by making them redundant and or less relevant.

Workers should not require the support of a Union representative to ensure that their employer is prepared to pay them their correct entitlements according to law.

And an employee should not have to risk cuts to their hours or the loss of their job by filing a complaint with the Fair Work Ombudsman.

All that is required to rectify the problem is a small tweak to the Ombudsman service and maybe a brief ad campaign to get the ball rolling.

..

Much genuine good will can be acquired (in my experience) by empowering people to gain greater control over their financial security solution for themselves.

..

I listened to the CEO of TESLA speak online from their website recently. To think that the whole world can be powered by solar from such a relatively small piece of land.

A link to the speech:

http://www.teslamotors.com/en_AU/powerwall

Labor voted to have the OPTION of turning back boats. They then need a minister with the gumption of using that option. Not someone like Anthony Albenese(?) who plainly would not.

The minute that anyone takes offense at a boat being turned around, the Labor wimpettes will turn and run like 10 yr old girls.

The only one with balls in labor is Tanya Plibersek, and she is quite happy to let Aus burn to further her career.

SM,

You just destroyed one of my fantasies >:(

Suse,

So what is it that engages your compassion, in the context of sixty million refuges, almost all out of sight ?

Is it that the boats are leaky and that desperate people have to pay exorbitant fares ?

So what if, say, for argument's sake - highly likely, I know - a collective of the Goat Cheese Circle in Melbourne and Sydney got their funds together (or more likely, their parents') and hired seaworthy boats to bring desperate people here at standard fares, only for a couple of hundred dollars each ? Would that wring the compassion out of you just the same ?

And if those seaworthy boats had to be accepted and welcomed here by a future Labor government, then why not people flying direct ? i.e. direct from Amman, Ankara, Karachi, even Jakarta ? Even, somehow, from Nairobi ?

Just trying to work out your limits :)

Out of sixty million (mostly out of sight), how many should we take then ? Oh, you have none ? So, all sixty million ?

Cheers,

Joe

LM,

I shudder to think what your fantasy is.

SM, I'm only a standard, weak, heterosexual male ;)

Hasbeen, are you seriously suggesting that Plibersek or Palaszczuk would put Poland's interests above Australia's just because their ancestors were born there?

As for those with names sans Anglo ring, that's nothing new; have you forgotten the Queensland premier who once tried to run for PM?

Why don't you think refugees could be advantageous to the existing population? Do you think they're incapable of paying taxes?

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Loudmouth,

Most of the world's refugees don't want to go to Australia. But as for the selection process:
• We should favour those who make their own way here, as people should have a right to determine their own futures.
• We should favour those who arrive in seaworthy vessels, because we don't want people to drown at sea. Those who arrive in leaky boats should be detained, but there should be limits on how long to delay them for. And those who only cross the Torres Strait should not be subject to the same seaworthiness requirements as those who cross the Timor Sea or the Indian Ocean.
• We should exclude those who support any terrorist organization.
• In the absence of any good reason to the contrary, those who don't speak english should be resettled in another country in our region.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Bazz, much of Indonesia is in Asia, and most Indonesians live in Asia. Opinions differ on where the boundary is, but Bali is definitely part of Asia.

Nowadays the Mercator projection is more associated with Google Maps than anything on classroom walls.

Aidan even our great Ozzie stock whips are not frightening enough to drive the current refugees to work, when they can get all they ever wanted sitting on their bums scoffing our welfare.

Weren't you aware people have to actually work, & earn money before they pay tax?

Thanks, Aidan,

So we should accept any desperate people who arrive in our waters in quite sea-worthy boats. Okay, that's moved the logic along one more step :)

So, just suppose a humanitarian organisation, funded, say, by Bill Gates, contracts a fleet of seaworthy boats for refugees in Indonesia, charging only standard fares, a few hundred dollars, to get to Australia. Would that still qualify people to be accepted in Australia ?

Cheers,

Joe

Aidan,

Your conjecture about allowing in asylum seekers that come in sea worthy boats is purely hypothetical as it has not happened yet. You forget that transporting illegal immigrants is still a serious offense. The boats that arrive are confiscated and destroyed, and the crew imprisoned for 5 years. No self respecting people smuggler is going to waste money on a good boat and crew, or only put the designed 20 people on board when he can fit 80.

SM, some of the boats were seaworthy, it is just that when the navy
turns up they scuttle them, so they become "sinking boats".

There is one thing that you can be sure of, if they are in a boat they will be lying.

Both Church and State alike have utilised the services of groups like those referred to by some as "the people smugglers" for hundreds if not thousands of years, especially during war or other times of trouble.

Thereafter, due to the absurd cost of most things in Australia, I do not expect the guvment to take any Humanitarian migrants at all.

What I do expect however is that you gather up all those within your jurisdiction in a safe and affordable manner, feed and medicate them and above all, do not further abuse these people (& children) any more than what they already have been.

That means, you must not lock them up in boxes (however nice that box may be) except when absolutely necessary for the purposes of security and medicine.

The Australian people do not want any more financial burden but they do want more jobs which calls for a nationalised response, not a free market response.

You can have a camp, where a sub set of the Australian rules apply, much like the "special zones" in special economic areas for use by multinationals as they exist in Asia.

Orientation to what life in Australia is all about can be a focus of learning.

As you remain unresolved amongst yourselves and insist on remaining so, it would be better that you did away with the cost of the Humanitarian intake all together and focused purely on a temporary, affordable solution, as opposed to continued abuse and the ever looming threat of future blowouts.

We have the technology to push up self supporting communities by making the deserts bloom and I believe there is much more to be gained than just that.

Note to DreamOn:

They've stopped coming.

The government has been paying crews to take boats back. Their passengers have quickly passed on the message that the next lot to get on a boat will do their money. And the next. And the next.

End of. To be more explicit for those who need it: people are not going to get on boats if they will end up back in Java where they started, and much poorer.

But thanks for a fascinating post shining light into the Utopian-totalitarian mind-set. It reminded me that, probably, even after Columbus, some monarchs were still warning ships' captains not to sail too close to the edge of the earth, or nearer those regions where there be dragons.

Cheers,

Joe

Foxy,

You have missed the point of the quote.

There is no point in establishing a good reputation if you are bankrupt. Setting a target of 50% with no analysis of the cost nor consequence, nor bipartisan support is extremely reckless and a political ambition at best. 30% is about the limit before the network becomes unstable.

As for scare campaigns the left are the masters having run more scare campaigns than anyone else