Yep, I’ve got the answer, crystal clear. Thanks SPQR.

I find Sarah Hanson-Young to be one of the most misguided politicians of our era. Yeah, the Greens are totally off the rails when it comes to asylum seekers.

Sustainability is indeed the last thing on their minds, so it seems.

Politics aside, I'll miss the old guy.

See when Keating brought in a bit of Charisma to the game, that was needed and Keating also had a vision, still does, it's coherrant whether you agree or not (Many don't as they hate Asians) and wore it on his sleeve, and wasn't afraid to piss people off. I'd like more of that, regardless of the policy line.

Now Bob speaks clearly and politely and respectfully, like a man who takes pride in his position, has pride in himself, and yes, seems to have integrity, as much as would be possible for a politician. Not much of that around at the moment.

I personally think he is sadly misguided in much of his ideals, but they're out there, he has ideals, and you can vote yay or nay, and there's no rubbish side show.

What I am sick of is the other two, the sickly media spun BS and focus group policy on the run and all these media arranged games where everyone tries to say as little as possible, and everyone else tries to take as much of that bland nothing speach out of context and mix with hyperbowl (Yes, New Julia I'll stick with your pronunciation).

So, give me a fearless Keating, to make me laugh and who has the balls to ignore public outrage, and give me bob as the old draught horse. Even The Rodent at least had the balls to ignore the micro media managing game of spin and BS, make a policy, ignore the 'negativity' of the opposition (What a BS cop out), and just get on with.....

Doing their f0cking job!

PS: Can anyone imagine in their wildest dreams Keating or Bob Brown branding themselves as The New Keating, or The New Bob Brown. I'd like to see the media PR spin manager suggest it to Keating and come out of the office alive.

Ludwig,
The Federal government claim we do not have a problem. they will point to the figures for 2010/2011 and claim we met the estimates. I'll post them here in round numbers.
The total migration number was 169k a figure which was met. That number was made up of 114K (67%) from the skilled stream and 55k (33%) from the family stream. These figure do not include a significant number of people arriving from, mainly New Zealand, who are coming for a verity of reasons. John Key the NZ prime minister has made a point to Australia that we are 'stealing' much of NZ's skilled workforce. which NZ paid to develop, a fair enough complaint.
It would be most difficult to maintain a balanced population with minimal migration without seeing an aging effect. There would be no way of maintaining living standards within Australia as the population grew older and older, in simple terms not enough people dieing to balance the low birth rate, some would have to miss out, and I suspect that would be the elderly.
With the demand for skilled workers outstripping supply we need to address this both short term and long term as a matter of urgency. When big business has put the demand on, the knee jerk reaction from the Labor government has been to cave in to that demand without addressing the problem of sustainability, and I'm sure the Liberals in power would do the very same thing.
cont'

It's only through a skills based education program that Australia will be able in the long term meet the business demands and maintain sustainability. Why is big business so in favor of skilled migration, because it cost them noting, no long term commitment to skill development through education, that costs.
I sure there is no need to say The Greens have a very strong education policy, which address this very problem.
Only recently I was talking to a Greens senator about our relationship with the Labor government. She told me despite the way the media like to portray it, the Labor/Green arrangement has been difficult at time. Many issues have privately be raised with the government only to have them rejected. I'm sure big business got the call over Greens concerns when it came to skilled migration.

A few points about asylum seekers. Firstly these people are refugees and not criminals, no more so than tourists arriving for a holiday. Why should it make a difference if a person seeks asylum if they arrived in a leaky boat or in a jumbo jet or escaped from the Bulgarian embassy. For political gain there are those that want to portray 'boat people' as criminals. Australia can spend billions playing political football with these people. All Labor and Liberal want to do is pack these people off to some third world country or some island in the Pacific and then sneak them back into the country at a later date. These people do not pose a threat if place in the general community for processing, they are not going to run away and hide in the Simpson Desert.
From the 37 points in The Greens Immigration and Refugee policy SPQR post 3 of them.
SPQR, where did you get your figure of 500,000 why not say 47,000,000 it would have a greater effect. The old " by my calculation" using the word "calculation" to give the notion of scientific evaluation, rubbish.
I was given a Liberal Party flyer in the street the other day it was headed "Illegal boat arrivals are out of control under Labor."
Under "Fact" it said "Since the Rudd/Gillard Labor government weakened border protection, more than 275 boats and over 14,800 people have arrived illegally in Australia by boat and the boats keep coming!"
My reaction was to tell the Young Liberal that "Joseph Goebbels would be proud of this," By her expression I don't think she knew who Joseph Goebbels was, its a wonder she didn't tell me to "give him a ring at head office on Monday." I then asked, what were the Liberals going to do about "The Jewish question." I was hoping to hear of 'The final solution'. She said "I only hand them out." I was not sure whether she was referring to Jews or flyers.

call them asylum seeker or illegal immigrants the fact remains that Greens policy has led to hundreds of dead adults and children as they encouraged these people to come to our shores in leaky boats. Far more deaths caused by the Greens policy than even deaths of brave Aussie soldiers in Afghanistan. Like Pilate however they wash their hands of any responsibility and continue with their dogmas which result in more and more economic illegal immigrants and put more people at risk. This id their idea of a humanitarian approach.