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.

________________________________________________________________________________________

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.

Yuyutsu, our government appears to struggle to look after our own aged people in their later, more immobile years, so I don't agree with importing others from overseas unless they can afford their own healthcare bills.

My British brother-in-law wants to bring out his parents to Australia to live. They have to pay $100,000 up front to the Government to be kept for any healthcare needs, as well as have top cover private health insurance before they are even considered.
In addition to this, my Brother-in-law has to agree to cover any expenses they may incur over and above what they think they may need.
They are unable to have an Australian pension or aged care card, but will still get the English pension.

I think this is fair, unless of course they are genuine refugees as well, and need to join their families here. Australia needs to do it's part as a country of the wider world in assisting those less fortunate than us, otherwise we are no better than some of the countries refugees are fleeing from.

Dear Suse,

But who needs your public healthcare in the first place?

We are talking about people who spend more than $50,000 just on hotels and air-fares, that is more than $100,000 per 3 years, because they are not allowed to remain in Australia and must be away 6 months of every 18. This healthcare thing for them is peanuts! (if they even would trust Australian doctors and hospitals rather than travel overseas if they needed an operation).

Most likely they already hold an international health cover well and beyond what Australian "private" health insurance provides, although they have no problem paying any medical expenses out of their own pocket.

Nor do they ever need to live in poverty on this meagre Australian age-pension, which they wouldn't receive anyway due to the asset-test.

All they need is a permanent tourist visa, which the cruel Australian government doesn't allow them.

Yuyutsu "But who needs your public healthcare in the first place?"

All very well unless you get a serious health problem and are unable to fly home, as has happened to several patients I knew. Their families had to beg, borrow and owe money to others to help pay for their parents treatments.

Do you have any idea how much some tests, treatments and medications are heavily subsidized by the government under Medicare?
I hope you never have to find out...

Dear Suse,

Tourists are not entitled to Medicare, so what are you concerned about? No money - no medication.
I wish I could be in their position myself in that respect without losing my ability to hold an Australian "private" health insurance.

What do people around the world do anyway about their health costs?
After all, 99.7% of them are not entitled to Australian Medicare!

Some save for a rainy day and so are able to pay such 6-figure medical expenses out of pocket.
Some have money allocated in their families for such unfortunate events, which is passed down the generations to be used if required and accumulated otherwise.
Some are part of a supportive community or a church/synagogue/mosque/temple, so when one falls ill the others open their hearts and pockets to help them. Some communities even tithe in advance for such events.
Some have comprehensive health insurance policies - and never forget when they travel to purchase a travel-insurance policy that includes repatriation expenses.
Some appeal to charities of good will.
Some wouldn't be willing to use conventional/Western medicine anyway, so why should they pay for it?
And yes, others simply die - it's a perfectly legitimate and respectable solution too.

Only Australians strangely believe that they have a right to steal their medical expenses from the pockets of other non-consenting people, without even having to say "Thank You".

The Australian government doesn't like families, in fact it enjoys breaking them.
The Australian government doesn't like independent people.
The Australian government doesn't like self-sufficient communities.
The Australian government doesn't like people who don't want their favours.
It likes everyone to depend on them alone.

I was visiting Lichtenstein in the late 1950's when the famous author Paul Gallico wanted to migrate there. The process was that every citizen was asked if they could or would perform the position that he would occupy in their society. As no-one would be displaced he was offered citizenship. I believe the price was $USD100,000. He accepted.

Yuyutsu, I am NOT talking about tourists here, as there are many people who emigrated to Australia to be with their families, but because they no longer work and are over 65 years of age, they or their family must agree to pay a large sum of money as a bond to our Government in case they need medical treatment (full-price, non-subsidized treatments), because they aren't eligible for Medicare.

Whether or not they 'agree' with Western medicine or not, if they are involved in a bad accident or develop a terrible illness, they may well be transported to hospital without being able to say anything against it. Good luck with paying those bills if you don't have Medicare as well as private health.
I know what I am talking about Yuyutsu, as I work in the industry...

Dear Suse,

<<if they are involved in a bad accident or develop a terrible illness, they may well be transported to hospital without being able to say anything against it.>>

So are you suggesting that it is OK not only to physically assault people, but then to also send them the bill for the assault?

Such behaviour is listed among the sins of the biblical city of Sodom: http://www.iwgonline.org/docs/sodom.html :

"Classical Jewish texts concur that God did *not* destroy Sodom and Gemorrah because their inhabitants were homosexual. Not at all. Rather, the cities were destroyed because the inhabitents were nasty, depraved, and uncompromisingly greedy. Classical Jewish writings affirm that the primary crimes of the Sodomites were, among others, terrible and repeated economic crimes, both against each other and to outsiders. Saying "God killed them because they were gay" is, to say the least, not the Jewish teaching on the subject."
...
"If one wounded his neighbour they would say to the victim, Give him a fee for bleeding thee [bloodletting was sometimes considered medically beneficial in those days; Here the Sodomite judge cruelly ruled that if one beats you until you bleed, you owe your attacker money for this "beneficial" medical service"...]"
...
"Their intention was to stop people from coming among them, as our rabbis have said, for they thought that because of the excellence of their land... many will come there and they despised charity..."

Sounds familiar?

I WAS talking about people who only wanted to stay here with their children, grandchildren and their families. They wouldn't care what type of visa they have so long as, simply, they are allowed to stay. They don't need your favours, medical or otherwise and never asked for them, only that you stop obstructing them. They and their families can support themselves better than most Australians, still Australia refuses them on technicalities, not even allowing them to deposit the bond you mentioned, not even $1,000,000 which they could easily afford.

Gee Yuyutsu, how nice for you and your friends to have so much money you can afford any number of medical treatments without the need for Medicare.
It is nice for some...

Unfortunately the immigration for jobs is an all time problem and not going anywhere anytime soon