I kept out of this thread for a while except for the needed reply above to Paul1405

ozzie Quote "You can tell when people like diamonpete have nothing to say of any substance. When they start calling you names you realize they cannot logically justify their comments and they resort to the lowest levels."
Your comment about summed it up correctly, although there were a few other people that can be put in the same category.

<< I don't believe for a moment the boats can be stopped. >>

Landrights4all, Howard stopped the boats.

The methodology for doing this is clear. And Labor is very reluctantly and very slowly implementing just the same sort of policies… in amongst completely contradictory policies that undo the deterrence factor and promulgate the whole asylum-seeker movement.

The boats CAN be stopped. There is no doubt about that.

<< The smartest thing to do would be to lay foundations for a more sustainable economic pathway. >>

Yes. But how does this sit with your belief that the boats will continue to come and in ever-bigger numbers?

Surely stopping the boats and regaining full control of our borders, our immigration program and our refugee-assistance and international aid efforts, sits within a strategy of developing a sustainable economy and society.

<< the numbers will keep growing until there is a balanced population throughout our region and a balanced living standard >>

Can you envisage what that balance would look like? Australia would be completely overwhelmed, with the complete destruction of our society, with the most massive population growth, before we reached any sort of population balance with Asia or the rest of the world!

Wow, I find the notion that we should just accept onshore asylum seekers for ever more, and at whatever rate they come, to be quite amazing!

There is nothing that I have encountered after seven years on this forum that I disagree with more strongly!

Ludwig, I should have said "... can't be stopped by any civilized method". ( And uncivilized methods will just result in a war which we will lose)

Yes I do envisage what a balanced population and living standard could look like - it would be able to avoid war and to foster sustainable development. But it would require that the poor have an alternative to the consumer society for food and shelter - the NTW model I referred you to.

By the way I don't think it will be a matter of what we should do regarding immigration , it will soon enough become a matter of what we must do. As with the environment, nature will not be denied - desperate people will just become more desperate, so it would be best if we learn how to co operate now.

Landrights4all,
That position isn't really a compromise nor is it reassuring, it's still couched in the PC eschatology, remember the pro Boaties are religious nuts as well as extreme Xenpohiles, it's a broad church but filled with pervs and mental cases like any other. I said earlier that I believe that the only way for normal people to take control of their nations is to throw open the floodgates, it doesn't matter now, the borders are already open, the only way forward is to overload and destroy the present system and as Alexander Dugin says 'destroy with one hand and build with the other".
Note the difference in viewpoint , it's optimism for a national rebirth out of the ashes of the decadent, egalitarian system as opposed to the belief in the total obliteration of all things in the end times espoused by the Refugee advocates.

Landright4all,
If you were a GENUINE refugee and had $5000+ to buy your way to Aus, why would you not come by an airline on a tourist visa, and apply for asylumn after arrival.

If indeed genuine, you would save yourself about $4000 and be safe, and no detention either.

Jay, I'm not suggesting anything at all compramised, not least because it would be impossible for the uncompromising to compromise. I'm not trying to be reassuring either - I agree with you that the borders are down. The old chant that "they could come on paddle pop sticks" is testimony to just how long this has been the case. But I do say that we are headed for disaster if we continue with the old fortress Australia mentality.

I believe there is a win win way forward in which we don't end up with ashes. That way forward means providing a way for permanently unemployed to house & feed themselves & have an important role in modern society (see the earlier NTW link.)