No, we just don't need to open the door to folks based solely on their ability to pay, but rather on current criteria, skills good character and family reunion. And we could increase our intake of cashed up economic migrants if they were self funded retirees.

These folk could be asked to settle almost exclusively in regional and rural Australia, be able to fully afford excellent health insurance and use private hospitals for their health care.

An under utilised private hospital in Kingaroy is in the news as teetering on the brink for lack of patronage!

That wouldn't be the case if the private practise included CAT scans, MRI scans and hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

Cashed up self funded retirees, make few if any demands on the education system, are usually over breeding age, boost the local economy, prepay their funerals and will in a comparatively short space of time, leave behind some useful less costly real estate?

And given enough numbers do for Australia what jettisoning death duties did for Queensland, without overloading our infrastructure or adding to the gridlock on urban roads!

Even so, we must never ever relinquish our good character tests regardless of the wealth of the applicant, but rather beef them up with the application of completely covert, space age lie detection equipment at entry points and or interview rooms in our overseas embassies! And for the most obvious 9/11 reasons!
Rhrosty.

All immigration should cease. We don't need more people; there are too many people here now. The are not enough jobs. We no longer do things requiring a large, skilled workforce. We are are relentlessly sinking to the level where there is nothing to attract decent immigrants anyway. The continuing hordes are 'refugees' and other devious people wanting to bludge off our generous welfare system, which will not be sustainable much longer, thanks to our 'she'll be righ attitude; leftist economic illiteracy;' free' trade deals that 'iffy' Ministers are actually praised for (by their mates), ridiculously high wages and profits for a few; gormless government intereste in, only in votes and hanging onto power, and a largely appathetic, simple-minded population. Our defence for 24 million people is less than that of Singapore with 6 million people. The misery goes on. Australia is on the skids.

Rhosty, You’ve been watching too much of ‘Yes Minister’on TV. Who can forget that classic episode where Minister of Administrative Services Jim Hacker is faced by two problems: a fully functional 1,000 bed hospital that unfortunately has no patients, and a thousand refugees on Britain’s door step but with nowhere to house them.

I have previously said we should try to make immigration profitable. Though I doubt it would be sensible to make ability to pay be a complete substitute for everything else, I eagerly await the report.

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ttbn, with fewer people coming here, many of the existing jobs would cease to exist.

If Australia really were on the skids, the market would restore our competitiveness by devaluing our dollar.

Yes Edward, James Hacker has a lot to answer for, however I'm not advocating people who come here and take our jobs, just add to the opportunity to add to the low skills service industries, which is what fully cashed up self funded retirees would bring.

And given they would be required to continue to fund their own private health insurance, put no increased demands on an over utilized public health service, but rather our underutilised private hospitals!

Moreover, given they would be required to settle in regional and rural Australia, not add to the demand for services and infrastructure in overcrowded gridlocked capital cities.

There are hundreds of thousands of significantly wealthy Europeans who are being hit by new wealth taxes and VAT increases and endless energy price hikes!

Genuinely wealthy entirely self funded retirees don't need to make any demands on our taxpayers. Given their costs are far higher in Europe more than here, able to afford our less costly services and lower GST! Albeit, we could take some of the steam out of an overheated housing market!

Look, nobody here would be harmed economically by us doing something to actually grow our economy with other people's money.

Sure the devil's in the detail, just as long at it doesn't include resettlement in any of our already overcrowded capital cities, and no additional impost on our current taxpayers!

And that dovetails almost exactly with cashed up self funded retirees.

If we were to reverse recent privatisation and the growth in energy costs that seems to have accompanied the privatising mindset, we could also add more sugar by offering ultra cheap power?

Publicly supplied power just doesn't need to come from singular monolithic monopolies, but trimmed of fat, competing for market share and survival duopolies, trilogies and or employee run co-ops?

I'd rather we opted for comparatively wealthy folk who are only ever going to be temporary Australians, transferring all their wealth here!

Don't worry about the language barrier, there are tablets that can translate almost any text into the local dialogue and visa versa!
Rhrosty.

Thank you Philip, you certainly have my tick on this one.

I see the cases of elderly people who are forcefully separated from their families, who can only stay with their children and baby-sit their grandchildren 12 months at a time on a tourist visa, then must fly out for 6 months waiting for their next tourist visa. Let the Australian government explain to their grandchildren why Granddad or Grandma have to go away again and leave them. These are people who take active part in the community, who participate in cultural and volunteer activities and every year are bidden farewell by many with tears till they can come again.

Only the hotels overseas they pay for to stay during their 6-month stints away from their families cost them more than this meagre once-off $50,000 that could instead help Australia balance its budget.