I am aware of the history of Christmas Island. However in the long run, the wishes of nice guys count for little in the world of realpolitik.

Cossomby, "We could always give Christmas Island to Indonesia. The very short distance from Java to Australia ie. Christmas I. is obviously an encouragement to people try the boat route. C. I. is Australian by an accident of history and would make geographical sense to be part of Indonesia."

You could put the same argument for Indonesia taking over West Irian. But wait, that has already happened.

You could put the same reason for the Indonesians or any Asian neighbour island hopping to and finally taking over Australia. It is in an Asian region you would say. Japan had that in mind, but the fear that stopped them was the possible loss of troops. They thought Australia had some in reserve.

One of the serious concerns of defence planners is that through a flow of illegal immigrants landing on Australian shores Indonesia could one day decide that an area of the 'unoccupied' North is more logically theirs. No chance of the UN defending 'whitey' in that case. The UN would agree that Indonesia was 'protecting' its ethnically similar people and also that it needed room to expand.

You may wish for that, but you might find that the actions of occupying Indonesian soldiers and police might cause you to adopt different way of thinking too.

Countries in our region now know that the Australian civilian population has been largely disarmed and the government is soft on border protection. Those are very dangerous images to allow to flourish as an invitation to a neighbour to take over our assets.

I take it you wouldn't be assisting in any defence though.

I agree with you OTB. I have always said that if enough Muslims populate Australia & they don't get their own way then the Indo's will step in to defend their Religion & Muslim brothers.

They have a much bigger Armed Forces than we do, which Australia has been financing through our Aid. & gifts.

I envisage that all the do gooder's will capitulate early as they will be saying to Australians, "Please don't fight it upsets me." then sit down & cry.

The question is what options would a Kevin Rudd led government have if hundreds of illegal immigrants by boat were a daily event, which is where we are headed now, and the illegal immigrants were covertly facilitated by the Indonesian authorities?

Kevin Rudd would be obliged to come to some agreement with Indonesia wouldn't he? There is no way Rudd could send troops or war planes against civilians, apparent or real.

Rudd would be convinced to remove the need for a visa for Indonesians to visit Oz. He would don a gay Batik shirt and talk up 'diversification' of the North and the cultural contribution of Indonesian food to his goal of a multicultural 'Big Australia'.

The lessons of history demonstrate that it is very dangerous to encourage neighbouring countries in particular in the belief that Australians do not have the bottle to insist on their right to decide who enters Asutralia and to defend the nation to the last man or woman standing. It was damn stupid too to disarm ordinary law-abiding civilians and make everyone so dependent on the State. It is abvious that Australians are well over 90% urban and have a Disney view of life and nature. The men have been made into pussies. The metrosexual PM Kevin Rudd deems a razor nick worth reporting to the world.

onthebeach quoted:

" Cossomby, 'We could always give Christmas Island to Indonesia. The very short distance from Java to Australia ie. Christmas I. is obviously an encouragement to people try the boat route. C. I. is Australian by an accident of history and would make geographical sense to be part of Indonesia.'

You could put the same argument for Indonesia taking over West Irian. But wait, that has already happened. You could put the same reason for the Indonesians or any Asian neighbour island hopping to and finally taking over Australia. "

In fact absolutely the reverse!

Just as Christmas I. is part of Australia by the accident of history, West Irian is part of Indonesia because of the vagary of colonial history - that half of NG was a Dutch colony! The whole island of New Guinea is a geographically and more importantly a cultural entity. On my argument Indonesia should hand it over so it can amalgamate with PNG - it might make life easier for Indonesia, in the same way that giving them Christmas I. would help us. Similarly there is no argument for Indonesia or Japan 'island hopping and finally taking over Australia' - it was always geographically and culturally separated.

The argument that could be used for such process is the precedent we set as Europeans by taking over Australia, and for that matter what's now Indonesia, New Guinea, SE Asia - and that is what motivated the Japanese in the 20C - if they can do it, why not us? They comprehensively failed. The lesson: why would anyone waste money and people trying to take over land per se, when you can just buy into the economy (but that's another story.)

Cossomby,

You show very little appreciation of many Asian cultures if you believe that by giving something away you will be rewarded with appreciation, thanks and cooperation. In many Asian cultures you would be regarded as simply not wanting what was gifted to them. In fact you would be regarded as bovinely stupid for doing so, regardless of your explanations. Cultures of many centuries run deep.

Gifting Christmas Island would inevitably be interpreted as double stupidity: first for not recognising its value and secondly for foolishly presuming the recipients would owe you one. Their thoughts? Obviously Australians are contemptuous of their own assets that they do not value them and don't care enough to keep them.

The other issue is that historical events must be understood in the environment that applied at the time. What you do is conflate past with present to arrive at conclusions that suit your opinion.

Regarding Japan, it would have invaded Australian in WW2 were it not for its belief that Australia had a trained army Division in reserve and that the population was armed and would fight as well.

What the Rudd and Gillard/Greens governments have done is give confidence to any nation that would like to take Australia that Australians are weak in asserting and defending their sovereignty and waters. That doesn't help in a country with a small defence force and a disarmed civil population (disarmed, excepting for the criminals of course).