Yabby: "Take forever more millions of refugees or ruin the Australian
environment? Are there any Greens who can answer that?"

Obviously, the Greens are not in favour of accepting "millions of refugees" who will "ruin the Australian environment". Greens policies are designed to balance humanitarian obligations and responsibilities with the need to limit our population and economy to sustainable levels.

Notwithstanding Boazy's xenophobic babbling and Ludwig's tendency to draconian treatment of innocent victims, any responsible Australian political party must seek to achieve an appropriate balance between these competing concerns. At least the Greens have a policy that anticipates the likely eventuality of environmental refugees, unlike the Tweedledum and Tweedledumber 'major' parties.

Relevant Greens policies are located at

http://greens.org.au/about/policy/

Alright, now that I’ve got that off my chest, I’ll address your philosophical questions;

“…do we take 20 million refugees or leave them where they are?”

We most definitely do not take 20 million refugees.

“Do we save Australia and our environment, or do we save 20 million or so refugees?”

We save our societal coherence. That’s the most important thing. Quality of life and environmental health are vitally important, but in the first instance we’ve got to make sure that governance and the rule of law hold together. Otherwise we will have anarchy and a totally destructive free-for-all.

So we can only afford to take a very small number of refugees, perhaps in the order of a few thousand per annum. I have previously suggested that doubling the current intake to ~28 000 would be about the maximum we should accommodate.

But given the looming problems of peak oil, climate change, a major downturn in the economic boom and a steadily degrading environment and resource base, perhaps we should be taking none at all, and hunkering down in an all-out effort to reach sustainability and make sure that our society hangs together.

“What comes first? Australia and Australians, or our compassion for our fellow human beings?”

Our societal coherence comes first. That doesn’t mean we give up compassion. It means that we be very careful indeed about what compassion we can afford to show.

Ok, well I guess this will generate a few strong responses. So bring em on!!

CJ, there seems to be a glaring contradiction in the Greens policy;

‘Australia has an obligation to accept humanitarian migration including that resulting from climate change.’

and

‘Australia’s population policy should be determined by its commitment to:

• ecological sustainability’

I’d suggest that we shouldn’t have any such obligation. If our society is really stressed, due to climate change, peak oil or whatever, then we are not going to be in a position to take ANY refugees.

And that is most likely going to be the case – that just when the pressure is really on to take in refugees, we will be least able to accommodate them without corrupting our own highly stressed social coherence.

“…Ludwig's tendency to draconian treatment of innocent victims, any responsible Australian political party must seek to achieve an appropriate balance…”

Well you’ve got the balance bit right. But not the ‘draconian’ bit. I’d love to know just what it is that you think is draconian about my approach and how you would go about achieving the necessary balance with what you would call a non-draconian approach.

Thanks for your posts, CJ and Ludwig. What I am trying to find out
is what do the Greens call balance?

What if the shoe was on the other foot and decades of drought and local famine make US the refugees.

Where would we go and who would have us? Would we expect salvation from anyone in particular or would we be prepared to die quietly at home?

Nice to see BOAZY waving the moral superiority flag of the paranoid faithful again.

rache, even with years of drought we produce enough food to well and truly feed ourselves. But I do get your point. Its very easy to moralise when you are not the one facing imminent death. I guess the answer would have to lie somewhere along the lines of "we take as many as we can without putting those that we take (or ourselves) at high risk". At the moment as Ludwig points out, we can probably only afford to take very few. As we get technological improvements that further improve our productivity, we may be able to increase those numbers significantly.

I apologise to the other posters for bringing this thread back to religion as well, but cant resist! BD: "Where compassion will be self destroying it is meaningless.".... ummmmm, didnt Christ agree to die (self-destroying) for the sake of compassion for others??