Rehctub wrote, "when are you goi g (sic) to get your head around the fact that immigration from our earlier years, Italions (sic ... he can't even spell it), Greeks, Chineese (sic ... ha ha, he hates them so much he can't even spell it properly) to name a few, are not the same as immigrants coming here today".

Rehctub, when the Italians, Greeks and Chinese were migrating a lot in the past, people JUST LIKE YOU were then complaining that these horrid, dark skinned "aliens" would never, ever assimilate, and that they form ghettos and will culturally and economically destroy our very being. You've forgotten haven't you .... remember *YOU* were one of the fearful complainers way back then.

And now, you're merely *REPEATING* the exact same hate, fear and paranoia that "some" Australians had towards those wonderful Greek, Italian and Chinese migrants back then. People were complaining that those horrid Greeks were "different" from those that came before and would never assimilate, then later on it was those evil Arabs that were "different" and would never assimilate, then later still it was the wicked, commie Chinese that were "different" and would never assimilate etc etc etc etc right up to the present day. It's *FORTRESS AUSTRALIA* from Rehctub.

Fortunately, the majority of Australians are far more insightful and intelligent than our little Rehctub. Rehctub's aging folks ... so maybe we should not be too unkind towards him.

Dear Ludwig,

<<No one seems to be interested!>>

The reason I am not interested, is that although from a pure economic perspective I agree with you, I see immigration as a moral issue, so when morals are involved no economic considerations should interfere.

I am an immigrant myself.

As far as I am concerned, I needed to escape the bad predicament I was in, which had nothing to do with economics, but as far as the Australian government was concerned, it was all a game of economics.

I was just lucky to have the perfect skills and experience that Australia wanted at the time, so I was warmly welcomed. My friends, however, who wanted to escape for the same reasons, were not as lucky as myself and at the time believed they were going to die (they didn't). We could only look with amazement at those strange Australians who can only think about economics, the very last thing on our minds.

All I wanted is to secure my feet on the continent of Australia: I was not looking for financial aid, for a job or for any other help and I do believe that other immigrants should not be expecting it either. An immigrant should be ready to take care of themselves - or starve.

So remembering where I came from, I say, don't encourage immigration, don't give immigrants any incentives and don't accept them into your society (unless you want to) - but don't deny people entry to this continent either (unless of course they pose a health/criminal risk to Australians). I am well aware of the inconvenience and consequences of sharing our boundless planes with others, but nobody has a right to deny others access to the whole of one of God's blessed continents.

Two quotes I like:

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

Debating with an idiot is like playing chess with a pigeon. He will knock over the pieces, crap on the board and strut around like he has won.

John,

"Shadow Minister wrote, "in only a few months he has achieved". How do you *KNOW*?"

The reason I *KNOW* is because I have a brain in my head, and I can deduce that if not one activist, nor one journalist from any paper, blog etc, has seen any new boat people arriving, nor has anyone anywhere leaked any information to the contrary, that there is an extremely high probability that what Morrison is saying is the truth.

So I don't believe what just one person says, and I am not a conspiracy nut job that believes the whole world is hiding the truth.

Yuyutsu, thanks for your comment.

Yes immigration is very much a moral issue. But then so should the budget be.

The budget needs to be brought back into line, but it needs to be done in the best moral manner, with the least amount of pain on those who can least afford it. And one of the very big, and very easy, measures towards achieving this would be to slash the immigration rate.

I am not talking about abolishing immigration; I am espousing a new balance, which would still allow us to have a very significant immigration program.

Even at net zero, which is where I would like to see our immigration program end up in a few years’ time after having it gently lowered year by year after the initial big reduction, we would still have a very significant immigration program.

If immigration had been slashed to about half as part of this budget, some 40b$ per annum would have been freed up in infrastructure costs. Not immediately, but over the following few years. And the infrastructure that gets built now as part of Abbott’s push would actually get us ahead rather than just be keeping up... or more likely; struggling to keep but not managing to keep up, with the demand exerted by our enormous immigration rate.

There is an enormous moral aspect to reducing immigration. It comes with respect to those Australian citizens who are battling at the lower socioeconomic end of the spectrum.

And of course there is a huge moral aspect associated with the achievement of a sustainable society, which very high immigration is just totally at odds with.

continued

Further to the moralistic perspective, I think that we should increase the refugee component, while slashing the skills and associated family reunion components.

Even at net zero, we could have a significantly larger refugee intake while still being able to bring in people with especially needed skills…. and their families. But of course: entirely under our offshore programs and not at all via onshore asylum seeking.

We should not be poaching large numbers of skilled people from poorer countries that desperately need them.

And we should be maintaining a big international aid expenditure…. which is another thing that is threatened by having a budget that is overburdened by the demands of massive immigration.

Ludwig,
I think the problem is that the government does not release financial info regarding the costs of immigration.

A while back Diverence gave us the names of a couple of organisations that may have some financial info, see link below.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=6302&page=0#185895

If you, or I, are to argue about budget savings we will need figures.

I suspect you are correct about the costs of immigration but gaining access to the figures is another matter.