Maybe not, Ludwig.

>>What about all the securely well-off people all over this country that are not in the public service? They would surely have the security of a ‘luxury' vote as well.<<

One reason why these people are comfortably off could be that they have been sufficiently successful at their businesses to know that the Greens do not represent any single aspect of the foundations of that success. It would be difficult to imagine a group more determinedly anti-business than the Greens. In fact, if you could find one - just one - of their policies that promotes a healthy business environment, I'd be very interested to hear it.

>>And pensioners and welfare recipients who would not expect their benefits to be significantly different under either government.<<

Oh, I think you may be wrong there. I suspect that this category has a very limited time horizon - down to a matter of next week in the case of the benefit recipient. In which case they surely would be voting for for a government that looks after their immediate future. Most of the Green policies seem dedicated to turning everyone into altruistic tree-huggers, whose imagined future consists of communing with nature from the discomfort of an unheated mud hut. Hardly a short-term selection.

>>...those pooor hard-working servants of the public, striving to make your and my life better and keep us safe and healthy... And you bag them to the hilt!<<

I specifically exempt those who actually work for a living - the nurses, the teachers, the police, the firemen, the ambulance drivers - from my overall view of public servant hangers-on. It's the pen-pushers, the flower-pickers, the committees that have no end-point, the army of State and Federal do-nothings, the endless departments of this and that, whose sole objective is to create the maximum of paperwork and generate the minimum of action, whose pampered existence I find parasitical.

If they ever stopped to think about it, of course, they'd realize that their jobs would not last long under a Green government.

The country simply couldn't afford to keep them.

david f - on page 3 you made a comparison to the Jews in 1938 which you thought was a good point.
But it seems like even the Jews don't want the refugees, Israel has been building a fence along the 260km-long frontier with Egypt to keep them out and yesterday they turned away 17 and let in 2 women and a child. By the photo the 17 were all men just like we are getting 95% on most boats.

Dear Philip S,

Yes, Israel and other places have turned refugees away. It is not news that people and governments can be hard-hearted. Countries also have a limited capacity to take in refugees. However, the number of undocumented aliens who come into Australia is a very small percentage of the population compared to those who have come into the US and Europe. Both the government and opposition in Australia are making something into a problem which is not a problem. They get people all excited over a few boat people that could probably be easily absorbed into the population. SPQR compares the boat people to Nazis. Others exploit the fear of terrorists. Terrorists can get into countries legally as the 9/11 bunch did.

I think the comparison with the Jewish refugees from Hitler is a very good one. Some of those turned away by Australia and repatriated have been murdered. Fear of the stranger is common. Those of a different religion, different coloured skin or a strange culture are suspect. Nothing is all all new about that. Irish, Chinese, Jews, whatever have all been objects of suspicion in Anglo cultures. This is just more of the same.

Dear Davidf

<<SPQR compares the boat people to Nazis>>

A little clarification is in order, for as we (should) know the refugee industry is in the habit of re-writing things to suit it purposes.

What SPQR said was: << too often, the Nazi’s are likely to be ones fleeing claiming “asylum”>>

Now it is a fact (unpalatable as it may be to refugee activists) that “dozen of young men” who we accepted out of the goodness of our great big humanitarian hearts were reported by their community leaders as having returned to fight for al-Shabaab.

And, I put it to you that the closest thing we have to the Waffen-SS nowadays are groups like al-Shabaab.

And it is/was by no means an isolated incident.

<< Fear of the stranger is common. Those of a different religion, different coloured skin or a strange culture are suspect. Nothing is all all new about that. Irish, Chinese, Jews, whatever have all been objects of suspicion in Anglo cultures. This is just more of the same.>>

It has little to do with (your clichéd) “fear of the other” –and much more to do with disgust at the way “asylum seekers” abuse the system.

Dear SPQR,

You wrote: "Now it is a fact (unpalatable as it may be to refugee activists) that “dozen of young men” who we accepted out of the goodness of our great big humanitarian hearts were reported by their community leaders as having returned to fight for al-Shabaab."

What is your source for the statement above?

Dear Davidf,

<<What is your source for the statement above?>>

If I am able to reference it with a suitable (lefty) source(s) will it change your mind set one iota?