I think Rache is correct. Australia is going to be one of the worst affected countries and it is very likely that we will be unable to feed ourselves -- let alone have enough to drink. With rising sea levels and predicted storm surges, all coastal towns and cities are under threat and we will have refugees of our own. And when the oil runs out in a few years, our so-called tyranny of distance might cause the starvation of citizens living in remote areas. Not an inviting prospect for refugees.

Hi there Rache :)

well.. consider this, the PLO blew up airliners to get attention... now look at how much sympathy they have.. including the bleeding hearts.... who now conveniently ignore the huge exploding planes, the massacre of Israeli athletes.. etc...

What do I do ? Just speak colorfully. Woooooo now thats scary :)

The GREENS? good grief. They (thought their mini me CJ) parrot:

>>balance humanitarian obligations and responsibilities with the need to limit our population and economy to sustainable levels.<<

Now lets deconstruct this in terms of 'Political Opportunism'...

1/ "Humanitarian obligations" a vote winner with the migrants/former refugees. (but places pressure on our ecological sustainability)

2/ "Population and Economy to 'sustainable levels' " - a vote winner with the young yet naive traditional Aussies.

There is only one problem: 1 and 2 are mutually exclusive. In opposition to each other. We are pretty much at saturation point now, here in Melbourne, I look to the next fall of rain like a man in the desert looks for the next Oasis. I monitor our water levels regularly and find we are 'snookered'
See THIS:
http://conservewater.melbournewater.com.au/content/storage.asp

Look realllllly closely at the start of 2006 and the end of 2007
Then see where we will BE at the end of 2008 with the same consumption and the same rain. Ok.. we will still be at around 40% if...we have GOOD rain. But if we had a year like 2006 or 1997 we would, to put it bluntly, be 'history'.

So much for 'sustainability' and 'more people' specially those caused by 'environmental' troubles. The only exception I'd make here is for Pacific Islanders. They aren't many. Bring em all here, (Darwin and Perth) Then...'finito'..no more.

Ludwig, I think your approach is draconian because you insist that the only way to deal with refugees is by detaining all asylum seekers, preferably offshore. I think that this is unduly harsh to innocent people who have already suffered deprivation and hardship that we in Australia can only imagine. It is simply wrong to incarcerate innocent men, women and children - particularly in the conditions that the current government deems satisfactory, but which drives the inmates literally mad. Most asylum seekers to Australia have been found to be genuine refugees in the end, so why punish innocent people unnecessarily?

Yabby, the Greens don't specify actual numbers, I think partly because the policy principles are in tension, and also that there is little consensus as to what the human carrying capacity of Australia is. There also seems to be little agreement as to what our humanitarian obligations and responsibilities constitute - note, for example Bob Geldof's comments about Australia's relative miserliness with respect to meeting foreign aid targets to which we have already agreed (http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/youre-mean-geldof/2007/11/19/1195321674573.html).

I think Australia is morally lacking as a nation if we simultaneously subject refugees to draconian measures and renege on our commitments to providing foreign aid that might help ameliorate the conditions that produce refugees in the first place.

My personal view is that we're around Australia's carrying capacity right now, at the ridiculously high levels of consumption of energy and material goods to which we've recently become accustomed. I think that as climate change and other factors like energy depletion kick in over the coming century, we're inevitably going to see a decline in our per capita consumption of energy and material resources, so we might be able to accommodate more displaced persons than at current rates.

In the short term, I think that we should aim for net zero population growth. Within those parameters, I think that we should replace the economic (i.e. business/skilled) component of our immigration intake with refugees. Please note that these are my personal views, but I think they are generally in accord with those of most Greens.

So CJ, you would not detain asylum seekers at all. You’d allow them to move freely in society from the moment they first arrive? Or would you hold them in low security centres in our cities? What exactly is your point of balance on this?

There is a bunch of reasons why free movement or low security detention would be highly undesirable:

They are not all innocent. Innocence or more to the point refugee status, needs to be determined first, surely.

The detention system in Australia has arisen directly through our own experience with asylum seekers, starting off with no detention from which people absconded, progressing to detention with minimal security from which people absconded, and progressing to high walls and razor wire as an unfortunate but necessary means of keeping control over the situation.

It is the less honest, least-likely-to-be-found-to-be-refugees that would be the most likely to abscond

Tracking down desperate people who don’t want to be found, quite likely with the assistance of Australian elements, could be hugely expensive and quite alarming for all involved.

Having people who are not at all familiar with Australian society moving freely could be disastrous. It would only take one or two serious incidents of assault or whatever to galvanise opinion against any such free movement and towards a harsher treatment of all asylum seekers.

The deterrence factor is hugely important. If would-be asylum seekers get the message that they can come here and step straight out into Australia society, what do you think would happen? The ‘floodgates’ would open.

Ludwig, I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on the question of mandatory detention of asylum seekers.

I suppose we could deal with the supposed dangers you see even more effectively than via unjust incarceration. We could subject asylum seekers to harsher interrogation methods and torture in order to weed out the few who are not genuine. It wouldn't be very hard to establish our own mini-Gitmo on Nauru or Manus or somewhere.

We could sink their boats in the water, or at least leave them to drown if they get into trouble... oh hang on, we already do that.

In addition to its moral repugnance, I don't think that a 'Fortress Australia' policy with respect to refugees is likely to be successful in the long term, anyway. If people are desperate enough, they will find ways to get here.

Hell, they might even come as tourists and overstay their visas, for example.

“…I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on the question of mandatory detention of asylum seekers.”

Well CJ, we’ve got the perfect forum here for nutting out this issue. So why not do it, rather than just pass it off as an irreconcilable difference.

You are very strong on the need for balance and population stabilisation. The potential for large-scale asylum seeker influx presents a significant component of this balance, so let’s explore it fully.

Can I re-ask;

“You’d allow them to move freely in society from the moment they first arrive? Or would you hold them in low security centres in our cities? What exactly is your point of balance on this?”

“I suppose we could deal with the supposed dangers you see even more effectively than via unjust incarceration.”

Yes! We could deal with them in a much harsher manner. So perhaps it is worth considering detention to be a moderate measure, which really is an appropriate balance between treating them reasonably well and maintaining a strong deterrence factor.

“I don't think that a 'Fortress Australia' policy with respect to refugees is likely to be successful in the long term, anyway.”

Rather than branding it a ‘fortress Australia’ mentality, we should simply be thinking of it as sensible border-protection policy. Where would we be without it? We’d be overrun, or at least, subjected to constant arrivals, which would harden the resolve of the Australian public and politicians to put an end to it, treating those caught in the middle in a considerably harsher manner than in the past.

There are no two ways about it, we should be clamping right down on onshore asylum-seeker movement, which Howard has done, and putting our refugee efforts into offshore programs.

Bob Geldof is right; Australia’s contribution is pathetic. THIS is where our efforts need to be greatly improved, NOT in giving onshore asylum seekers an easier passage.