Banjo

"How about you put forward the numbers of "refugees" we should take in each year and under what conditions."

I think Australia could accommodate a refugee intake of 15000-20000 as long as there was a proportional reduction in our migration program so that net migration didn't increase.

30000 came to Australia last month on temporary work visas, yet we're going to great expense to keep out a few hundred asylum seekers who could just as easily fill these job vacancies. Many asylum seekers have professional qualifications which could be upgraded to our standards easily enough. Many are also willing to do jobs that are often hard to fill eg at abbatoirs.

You ask how we should pay for an increased intake. We are currently spending billions on detention centres and other deterrence measures which could be better spent on assisting asylum seekers to become self-supporting.

You mention health concerns. There needs to be an initial period of detention to complete health and security checks, maybe one or two months.

I agree, we need to offer alternatives. There's been a lot done in this area and there are some excellent policy statements around. The ALP, the Democrats and the Greens all have workable policy alternatives.

Col Rouge, Here's that extract I said I'd post yesterday.

WHEN Mohammad arrived at a Brisbane private hospital last August after spending nearly five years in offshore detention, most of it on Nauru, the reception from some of the other patients was less than welcoming.

One, in particular, was so upset that "illegal immigrants" from the Middle East were taking the beds of Australians who needed treatment that he made it his mission to have Mohammad and two other asylum seekers already at the hospital moved somewhere else. "I knew nothing of him. I just put him in the same bracket I put every person who came from somewhere else — I just didn't like him," says Alan, 59, a Vietnam veteran whose post-traumatic stress disorder was diagnosed only four years ago. Not only did Alan make his feelings known to anyone in authority at the hospital who would listen, from the administrators to the nurses, he encouraged other patients to take the same stand. "I was quite upset because I knew the hospital was full and there were other veterans waiting to come in and I thought it was wrong. So for the first 10 days, I made a real nuisance of myself to the authorities and nurses and even asked my wife to take me home. I just didn't want to be there with these people."

Then, late one evening, Alan was sitting in the corridor when Mohammad appeared with a plate and offered him a slice of watermelon. "My instinct was to say no, but I finally took a slice and, later on, he came back and asked if he could sit with me." Their conversation over the next two or three hours was, in Alan's words, a life-changer. Mohammad, 27, told his story, from his childhood in Iraq to the decision to flee Saddam Hussein's regime, to the experience with the people smugglers and, finally, what happened on Nauru. "I just couldn't imagine, given my background, how anyone could endure what he has endured and we became better than friends."

Bronwyn,

Our current growth rate is giving us a population doubling time of 53 years. In all of our capital cities (except maybe Hobart) the existing population is experiencing severe permanent water restrictions. According to the government's own State of the Environment reports since 1990, every environmental indicator except for urban air quality is getting worse. Sydney is even going backwards on that one according to the latest. Both rising per capita consumption and rising number of caputs matter, and in many cases the latter is more significant. Currently (ABS figures), two babies are born and one net migrant arrives for every person who dies. All you will succeed in doing with such a large intake is to eventually make Australia as poor, populous, and environmentally degraded as the places people are risking their lives to escape. You might even make us a source of refugees as a balkanised population squabbles over an inadequate pile of resources.

Every time we have a war (even WWII) we kill and maim innocent people, not to mention depriving them of their property. If you are not a complete pacifist you accept this. Of course a few thousand refugees are not a problem, but the difficulty is that, from the experience in Europe and North America where there is no mandatory detention, numbers will not stay small, and we are likely to end up with 20% genuine refugees like the UK and not 85% or 90% genuine as at present. Before 1980 there were less than 100,000 asylum claims a year in all the European countries put together. By 1992 there were nearly 700,000. See

http://www.unhcr.org/publ/PUBL/3b810de44.html

“It was you who said that asylum seekers should be imprisoned in case they abscond.”

Excuse me again Rhian. I have said no such thing. It is not imprisonment. I would implore you to stop thinking of it in that way and start appreciating just why it is necessary to not allow asylum seekers to move about freely, until they have been found to be refugees.

And I would again implore you to be careful with the things that you attribute to other people. When you wrongly attribute things to others, it badly damages your argument and your presentation as a level-headed person in the eyes of others.

You haven’t made any attempt to answer the straight questions I put to you. Surely if this debate is to proceed in a sensible manner, we need to address each other’s concerns directly. Presumably you have no answers to these questions.

All you can say is that you don’t accept my reasoning, without giving any reason why…and without offering any alternative way of dealing with this difficult issue.

I also note that Bronwyn balked on this issue and has not replied to me since I raised it, again presumably because the argument for a balance between the treatment of asylum seekers and the necessity for strong deterrence is unanswerable to those who wish only to see the best possible treatment for these people, and are not willing to consider any other factors.

So Rhian if our discussion is to continue, can you address this point please. I don’t think there is any point in continuing until you tackle the issue of how asylum-seeker treatment is related to the deterrence or prevention-of-influx issue, and what would inevitably happen if we treated them in the way that you wish. Thankyou.

Yvonne,
Surprizingly, it appears that we may agree on some things.

1. We should insist that each political party put forward a population policy for us to evaluate. We must have a goal to aim for and it should be the basis of any migration policy. I raised this in "general discussion" here on OLO a few weeks ago and opinions varied from 10 million to 35 million.

2. I agree. We have enough people in the world already. Encouraging women to have more babies is ridiculas, and we even pay them. Any short fall in population can easily be made up by adjusting immigration.

3. I agree. We should train our own and not go poaching skilled workers from other countries that most likely need them far more than we do. I think it is an indicment on all governments, both State and Federal, and industry, that we have neglected this for years. Perhaps it all started when we were going to become the "clever country" and we all would get to sit in front of our own PC and everything would just happen without effort. Fantacy.

4. We differ here as I am not at all sure that we need immigration. Or at least high immigration. Big business wants high immigration as it gives sales growth for consumer goods without them competing with each other. Hence large donations to both major political parties. Some northern european countries seem to bet along OK without population growth and one day we will have to learn to do the same.

In view of current water shortage and lack of infastructure, I would advocate zero net immigration for some years.

Bronwyn,
Your figure of 15000-20000 is not much more than at present. But we do have to control the intake and put up deterants to stop people just turning up. Otherwise there would be a flood and an unacceptable strain on our resourses. I notice you accept that some detention is required for health and bona fide checks, therefore detention centres are required. Prolonged detention should not be necessary as if the applicants story does not check out, they should be deported forthwith. Appeal process only delays matters.

I do not agree that temporary work visas should be required for so many people. Skill shortage is the fault of business and Government.
Aussies will do the unpopular, hard and difficult work if given the right incentives. Take fruit picking. Vic Rail used to run special trains to the fruit areas for pickers and people took their holidays to coincide with the fruit season. All cash in hand but he money stayed in Aus and willing people paid off their house or block this way. Paul Keating stopped this when he made all employees have a tax file number to get work. The fruit pickers found it was not worth the effort after tax. If someone is prepared to be on a ladder in that heat then tax should not be required. This applies to other hard or difficult jobs as well. We have to encourage the willing. The money paid to these workers is soon back in the system and I do not begrudge anyone who is willing to work hard.

On immigration and refugee policies. The ALP has similar policies to the Libs and it was the ALP that put in detention centres. I have not seen latest Dems or Greens policies, but the last i saw did not impress me at all.