Paul 1405,

<< 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.>>

Under our current much narrower definition of “refugee” there is apparently an inability to close our maritime borders, to illegals.
Anyone who boats-in and lip-syncs the magic words “I am from Afghanistan —and I am a refugee” is almost guaranteed to be granted asylum (and life long social welfare!).

So how much bigger will the problem get if we massively widen the definition to include “climate refugees” which “experts” tell us will come from a pool of 200,000,000 (and counting) “climate victims”?


Add to the above the propensity of The Green’s to undermine any attempt at border control. And the propensity of The Green’s to attribute any adverse climate event to AGW, in which on a per capita basis Australia has been indicted as the worst offender, and morally bound to make restitution.(see Bob Brown's infamous quip about the QLD floods here: http://www.azomining.com/News.aspx?newsID=2555)
And I would think that inducing 500,000 illegals to arrive on our north-western coast would be well within the realms of Green's idiocy.

I'm with Houllie on this , I miss Keating. Brains, balls and couldn't be bought, in that order.

D’Oh Houellie, Keating was a complete and utter klutz! Bob Brown is a saint in comparison!

SPQR,

Still waiting for your 'calculation' 1+1=2 is a calculation.

Can I please see your calculation which shows A+B=500,000 or is it just a figment of you bias imagination.

The unsubstantiated right wing rants which vilify innocent people including children, who's lives have been torn apart by war and famine etc is simply Un-Australian and people like the defrocked priest Abbott should be ashamed of themselves.
Have a good Day.

Paul1405, yes total immigration in 2010/11 was about 169 000, not including Kiwis!

That’s huge for us to keep on having in an ongoing manner.

How does it relate to an aging population?

Well firstly, this apparent aging issue has happened at the same time that we have had very high immigration, over a period of many years. There is no sign that this level of immigration is actually helping alleviate it at all, is there?

What extraordinarily high level do you think we would need to properly address this problem, or perceived problem?

The aging issue is basically a furphy. Yes the ratio of workers / tax-payers to those drawing a pension, health benefits and the like is changing. But this is just one increasing pressure in amongst many.

Most of these pressures are being CAUSED by rapid population growth. These include ever-increasing pressure on our transport infrastructure, health services and just about all other infrastructure and services as well. This pressure necessitates the spending of huge amounts of money to struggle to keep them up to scratch. The end result is more and more of the same substandard facilities for ever-more people, with only a slight improvement or no improvement or a considerable loss in quality for the pre-existing population.

How do we address the aging issue, if there really is one?

We implement all manner of incentives to get older people to stay in the workforce, and we stop growing our population so that our economic growth can actually lead to significant per-capita growth instead of the same or declining level for ever-more people.

Then we will hopefully have the fiscal wherewithal to provide a reasonable pension and health services for the elderly who can’t work and don’t have sufficient superannuation or financial reserves.

Promoting an ever rapidly growing population on the premise that it will cure a very serious aging ‘crisis’ is just crackers! It will actually make the situation a lot worse.

Paul, you wrote:

<< 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. >>

YES! So where have the Greens been?

Silent!

A strong education policy is fine. But it’s not a holistic approach. Not by a long way. And it’s pretty useless if we are just going to continue to have enormously high skilled immigration.

The Green should be very strongly lobbying not only for a huge reduction in immigration down to net zero for sustainability reasons, but for Australia to stop sucking skilled people out of their home countries, where they are nearly always much more badly needed.

You agree with John Key regarding NZ losing a large part of its skills base to Australia. Well, what about many considerably poorer countries around the world?

The Greens would like Australia to spend a whole lot more on international aid, I presume. So for them to just sit back and condone Australia’s very high skilled immigration can be seen as a quite contradictory position.