Whilst it would be nice to give the maximum possible rights to absolutely everyone, there needs to be some acknowledgment that granting such rights to one group can effectively take away rights (i.e. the right to decent affordable shelter, decent jobs or, indeed, any jobs at all, education, access to health services) from another.

Any society that doesn't guarantee these basic rights to existing inhabitants before granting the kind of rights that people like Susan already enjoy, let alone voting rights that she asks for, to often more privileged outsiders is, by my definition, dysfunctional.

In recent years, Australia has abysmally failed this test with many existing residents being reduced to what is no better than slavery(1).

Does anyone ever wonder how people on basic wages pay the rent these days?

Either they cram into substandard forms of shelter such as boarding houses or shared tenancies (2) or they work at two jobs. Sometimes they have to do both.

Even professionals find it hard to cope.

This appalling situation has been deliberately brought about by our political leaders, that is unless, we assume that they were too stupid to realise that the unearned windfall profits raked in by land speculators had to be paid for by somebody.

And through the years whilst they and their puppeteers (3) have been bringing about this situation they have masked their true motives behind a facade of fake compassion for other human beings.

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1. This is a word used by a professional surveyor who lives near me to describe his curent circumstances. He had to cancel his annual trip back to Europe last Christmas thanks to his landlord jacking up his rent repeatedly in recent years.

2. See my article "Shared accommodation a necessity and no longer a choice for many in Brisbane" of 30 April 2008 at http://candobetter.org/node/446 . The situation has become even worse since then.

3. See "How the growth lobby threatens Australia's future" of 9 Feb 09 at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8485&page=0

Upon further reflection, I have decided that it wasn't appropriate for me to raise my concerns about immigration in the way I did in my first post.

I should have made it sufficiently clear that Susan Giblin was not unlikely to personally responsible for the way that immigration has been abused by our elites to screw ordinary Australians.

My own personal experience clouded my better judgement, so I apologise to Susan.

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That said, my general points still stand and I would encourage Susan to engage in this and other discussions.

It should be noted that in the midst of a recession the rate of immigration has actually INCREASED. See http://www.theage.com.au/national/migrant-figures-jump-the-slump-20090508-ay0t.html

"IMMIGRATION has soared to record levels, even with the country in recession. Figures show that in the year to March, permanent and long-term arrivals outnumbered departures by 337,000.

"The Bureau of Statistics says that in the March quarter alone, people entering the country who said they would stay here for at least a year outnumbered residents leaving for at least a year by 128,000 ­ about 10,000 a week.

"The figures imply population growth is even higher than the official figures, showing record growth of 389,300 in the year to September, or 1.84 per cent.

"On the new figures, population growth could be running at more than 400,000 a year, or about 2 per cent.

"In the March quarter, the number of net permanent and long-term arrivals was 24 per cent higher than a year ago.

"The number has doubled in five years. ..."

This is insane.

To KMB - thanks so much for the fantastic questions. I'll have to ponder on them and do a bit more research, to come up with a response.

Best wishes, Susan

Susan Giblin
Reply to KMB

I’m sorry for the delay getting back to you.
I’ll start with a comment on your questions about young people's voting rights.

I agree that there is a case to lower the age of voting in Australia. Mandela famously wanted to lower the age of voting in South Africa to 14. He was overruled though. I haven’t looked into this issue in detail but I reckon it would be interesting to investigate – what his suggestions were and why he was overruled.

I’ve found a few websites relating to the issue of youth voting rights:

http://www.youthrights.org/votestatus.php
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/21/2222839.htm

Susan Giblin cntd.
Now to the issue of tax:

I said in the original article that ‘[a]s a resident here in Australia I pay taxes out of any wage I earn.’ It is the potential to pay this tax, not the actual paying of it, which I think warrants whether we should have a vote or not. This would ensure that people who have lost their job, or retired people, or students still have a vote.

Discussions in favour of non-citizen voting rights seem to use the payment of income tax as an argument in favour, not other kinds of tax, such as GST. See this article for example:

http://www.drummajorinstitute.org/library/article.php?ID=5519

I would need to go into this much deeper. Referring to the Boston Tea Party, which happened within very different circumstances to today was, perhaps, not the strongest of my arguments, but it is possible to extrapolate from then to now and argue for a further extension of democracy and justice.

Nobody is suggesting tourists should vote, rather those who have a stake in the community and have made a commitment to be here and set up a life here in Australia. Extending voting rights to residents but not tourists would not be contradictory in this sense.

TomT: << ...those who have a stake in the community and have made a commitment to be here and set up a life here in Australia >>

Susan, I may have missed something here, but is there some reason that you've not chosen to take up citizenship in Australia? The reason I ask is that doing so is a formal act that demonstrates both an individual's stake in the community and their commitment to it.