Bob Hawke gave us a guide on immigration. He allowed Chinese students who were in Australia at the time of the Tiananmen massacre to stay in Australia. He considered their need.

At the base of the Statue of Liberty in NY harbor is a poem, The New Colossus, by Emma Lazarus:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

These words are especially important.

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

This can also be a guide to immigration. Admit those with the greatest need. The US Immigration Act of 1924 was more concerned with ethnic mix than need. This succeeded in condemning many Jews to death by the Nazis.

David,

In that wonderful verse, there is a blurring of immigrants with refugees.

Strangely, many Western countries are in dire need of highly skilled workers, especially in health and IT. So of course, they seek to attract, and are attractive to, such workers from developing countries.

The only problem with that, from my point of view, is that their home-countries are constantly being depleted of such skilled people, to the benefit of countries which may - relatively - already have plenty of their own. I wouldn't be surprised if, for example, there are more Nigerian doctors in Britain than in Nigeria; or more Indian IT professionals in the US than in India.

So, if anything, Australia should be taking in more students in the health and IT professions from those countries, to train and keep here, in order to reduce the depletion of needed professional numbers in their home countries.

But I certainly am in favour of what I perceive to be the policy of many Asian and African countries, to allow only their most beautiful women to migrate. Very selfish of me, but we all have our failings.

Joe

David,

In that wonderful verse, there is a blurring of immigrants with refugees.

Strangely, many Western countries are in dire need of highly skilled workers, especially in health and IT. So of course, they seek to attract, and are attractive to, such workers from developing countries.

The only problem with that, from my point of view, is that their home-countries are constantly being depleted of such skilled people, to the benefit of countries which may - relatively - already have plenty of their own. I wouldn't be surprised if, for example, there are more Nigerian doctors in Britain than in Nigeria; or more Indian IT professionals in the US than in India.

So, if anything, Australia should be taking in more students in the health and IT professions from those countries, to train and keep here, in order to reduce the depletion of needed professional numbers in their home countries.

But I certainly am in favour of what I perceive to be the policy of many Asian countries, to allow only their most beautiful women to migrate. Very selfish of me, but we all have our failings.

Joe

Dear David,

Thank You for those inspiring words.

The cringe-worthy "White Australia" policy limited
the non-white ( particularly Asian) immigration to
Australia. Yet "The Asian invasion" topic goes
back 140 years. Perhaps since our first Chinese
migrant in 1818.

This question of "multiculturalism" appears to bring
out derisive racist clickbait and we should not
rise to the occasion. And its done anonymously on
this forum.

No matter what some may argue - the fact remains
that today's Australia is composed of a wider mix of
people than was previously allowed. It should not
concern us that the population is composed of 24% Asians
in Melbourne and 28% in Sydney. Nor that we now have
black communities that did not exist when I was a child.

Today one in 3 marriages in Australia are inter-cultural.
Asians have been inter-marrying here cross-culturally
since the 1800s.

12.5% of the total population of Australia claim Asian
ancestry. 36.1% identified as English in the 2016 census.

Times have changed. And will continue to change.
And Australia has been the better for it.

Dear Loudmouth2,

Some immigrants are refugees. Others are not. I favour giving priority to the refugees.

Western societies do attract many highly skilled workers from developing countries. I remember that Philips, when I worked for them, sold an MRI machine to a West African country. To the best of my knowledge it was ordered for reasons of prestige by the kleptocrat-in-chief and never used. Many developing countries funnel foreign aid into the accounts of kleptocrats and the military. If a worker from a developing country becomes highly skilled by virtue of education in a western country he or she might be worse off going back to the home country which may not have the infrastructure to use those skills.

Maybe you could develop a taste for beautiful men which would increase your chances.

David,

Changing my tastes ? A bit late for that now ;)

Yes, Australia should slowly edge up its refugee intake, with all the tasks that that would entail, in terms of teaching English and employable skills. I'd be happy to contribute to that aspect of Emma Lazarus' aspirations as long as I could.

But as long as there is deep corruption and power through corrupt alliances, based on family, clan, language-group, etc., and a philosophy that the spoils go to the strongest, I can appreciate that skilled people would get pretty sick of being mis-used, and seek to emigrate to a place like Australia.

Our gain :)

Cheers,

Joe