@ individual:

I thought you said the subject is closed for you.

Oh well, since you're back - obviously I don't approve of wasting taxpayers' money.

However, you haven't established that the island is subsiding. All you've done is advanced a hypothesis that it is, but you haven't backed it up with any evidence.

While I was already quite familiar with the culture, history and geography of Saibai, as part of our discussion I had already consulted the very brief entry on it in Wikipedia. It doesn't provide much information, but one thing I did notice is that it says that most of the island is owned under Native Title.

As I've suggested previously, therein is a legal and political can of worms. What strategies do you envisage to enable the government to remove these people from their land? Where do you propose sending them, and under what powers can the government take someone's land for the purpose of giving it to someone else?

These aren't hypothetical problems. If sea levels are rising as they appear to be, this kind of issue could be repeated all around the Australian coastline.

Now I've asked a couple of very relevant, practical questions in relation to your topic, once we finally established what it was. Will you answer them? I'd suggest that you might have to go beyond Wikipedia and hearsay to be able to provide sensible answers.

morganzola,
you're again avoiding to answer.
On one hand you say I haven't established that the island is subsiding yet then you say the sea level is appearing to rise.
Do you still think it right to pour more taxpayer money into this island ? That is what I would like to to answer on.
Land subsiding or sea level rising, the end result is the same. The island will be flooded. What do you suggest as an alternative ?
Ah, let me guess. Julia Gillard's Carbon Tax will prevent all this, eh ?

@ individual:

This is getting silly. Please stop pretending that you're unaware of the enormous political problems associated with removing people from their land and relocating them somewhere else. If evidence for sea level rises due to AGW is true, then this is going to present an enormous problem for governments everywhere, particularly in Australia with our thousands of km of coastline.

You can't just pretend things out of existence - you can't even nominate where this relatively small community might go, and your disdain for the TS Islanders' perspective is woeful. Indeed, I can't help but detect a whiff of envy towards landowners from someone who isn't one, for some reason.

OK - you can't answer the hard questions (which is understandable - I don't think anybody can yet), so how about an easy one?

Where do you propose sending the Saibai Islanders? Your answer will undoubtedly lead to more questions, but you can answer them in due course.

morganzola,
this isn't getting silly, you are.
as to your question where they should go, ask them where they'd prefer.
Now, do you think we should pour more taxpayer money into Saibai or not ? If yes, what do you think can be done with that money to stop the island being flooded ?

@ rehctub:

I'm not sure why I'm persisting with this, but on the off-chance that you genuinely don't get it...

Let's assume you're correct and the island is no longer habitable, as determined by reliable and objective evidence of increasing inundation. If that is indeed proven to be the case, I agree that remediation measures for Saibai itself are a waste of money in the long term.

You say we just remove the landowners to wherever they want. So far so good. Who pays for removal expenses? What about the question of compensation, which will surely be an issue? What if they refuse to go? What about when other neighbouring islands are also largely inundated?

I'm not sure if you've seen any of the TV vision that is starting to be screened about sea level rises in the Torres Strait, but what has been shown so far indicates that the issue is one of those associated with climate change in the media's eye, and the TSI landowners have been described as 'internal refugees'. In short, another can of worms for the government (or preferably some wider body) to deal with. I can see the headlines: "Internal refugees housed in luxury motels!" or some other such nonsense.

It seems to me that this is one of those issues that you really haven't thought through at all, and part of your problem is your attitude, which is often aggressive and obtuse. Now, instead of stonewalling, why don't you answer the questions I've asked above that your own solution (such that it is) raises?

morganzola,
it is you who is utterly ill-informed. Who pays for removal ? The taxpayer of course who has been & still is paying for this island population to exist. If they refuse to move then for their sake I hope they're excellent swimmers. Who will pay compensation ? Compensate for what ? The entire infrastructure is taxpayer funded so it'll not be a question of compensation. no-one has paid a single cent for the land that is inhabited so shifting to another, higher island will not involve land cost as such. It will come down to how their own people are inclined to help their own people. The taxpayer will look after the moving. Providing land which has never cost any money is a matter for the families to agree on.
I have told you over & over of my solution & that is to move to higher ground. If you can avoid inundation with culture & pride then I wish you the best of success.