Conundrum:
Why is it those that are the most adamant about global warming and warn of longer droughts and drier climate are generally the same people who advocate much more immigration ?

Bazz - haven't you read the thread The Hypocrisy of Selective Precaution in the general comments that is dedicated to exactly that conundrum?

Hi Conservative Hippie,

I wasn't aware that I had an anti-immigration stance. And with my birth-family all living in New Zealand, with some of them still Australian and a couple now New Zealanders, I certainly don't have any animus towards Kiwis.

Has Been,

My fond memories of Islander work-mates when I worked in New Zealand meat-works are of very hard workers. One pair used to pack wool, and they usually reached their quota in a five-hour day - when I joined them we took seven hours. Their ethic seemed to work hard, and live enthusiastically.

We need a lot more people like that here :)

Joe

That is interesting.

We currently have a war going on in a number of southern Brisbane suburbs between aborigines & Islanders.

Most of the combatants are living in public housing, & are on welfare, so from what you tell us, the islanders must have been here for quite a few years. That or there is some way around these fairly recent restrictions.

From recent revelations regarding many successfully ripping off the welfare system to the tune of millions, that is highly probable.

Sorry LM, I confused a statement made by G'day Bruce that was in-between your two posts on page 35.

G'day Bruce and Joe,
I can't accept what you say but lean more toward Bruce with his immigration and MC views.

What you miss is that the problem blokes are 2nd and 3rd generation now and they still call themselves Lebs. Like the croats and serbs, they still have hatreds for each other after many generations. They are taught hatred from the cradle. They will never be Aussies while ever we keep importing new arrivals to refresh the old hatreds and cultures. Some will never integrate no matter what.

So I take it you blokes are happy to keep importing these people even if 10% or 20% are fundamentalists who wont integrate and want to destroy us and our society. They have nothing but contempt for us.

I think we should stop allowing the groups in that fail to become part of us, after the 1st generation. We would be better off and they would be happier elsewhere.

No worries, CH :)

Has Been,

Perhaps that feuding between Aborigines and Islanders - and I anticipate something similar between Aborigines and Africans - may arise from a clash of ethics: a low synergy (low-input/low-output) ethic versus a high synergy ethic. I was struck by that difference more than forty years ago, working in Auckland. I suppose it also basically reflected the differences between the cultural hangovers of an Aboriginal hunter-gatherer ethic and a Maori/Polynesian agricultural ethic.

Bruce,

Of course much of what you write is true, but I suspect that Australia has squandered the opportunities for growth provided by the mining boom over the past fifteen years, opportunities to move up the economic skills-spectrum and into much more educationally advanced sectors of industry. We've missed opportunities to work smarter. Farmers have responded to changing trade conditions by changing land-uses, innovating, improving water-efficiency.

The paramount rule in today's societies is 'get used to change'. I get the sense that most European economies - and Australia - have a notion to 'persist in the same old', a sort of 'she'll be right, mate.' Perhaps it will be immigrants here who won't see it quite that way.

The coming internal battles within Islam in Australia and around the world will certainly complicate our economic problems.

I think I've offended enough groups for today :)

Joe