The announcement by Kevin Rudd and PNG PM O’Neill that asylum seekers arriving by boat would, from now on, be settled in PNG came as a shock to most of us. I’ve waited a while to respond, because I’m neither happy with the policy nor satisfied with the critical responses from the Left. It also remains unclear whether the policy will actually work as planned, but that will take some time to determine.
The benefit of waiting is that I’ve had time to see this piece by Tad Tietze, who I think sums up the issues pretty well, making the point that, while Rudd has outflanked Abbott regarding a hard line on boat arrivals, he has also outflanked critics on the left by increasing the total refugee intake, which is already claimed by the government to be the highest in the developed world on a per capita basis. [1]
Tietze’s proposed solution, an open border policy is appealing in principle, and potentially as a basis for a radical left campaign. Obviously, however, it’s not likely to happen any time soon, and particularly not on the basis of unilateral action by Australia.
Is there any solution that is both politically feasible and humane? The various iterations of Pacific Solution, Malaysian Solution, PNG Solution and so on, based on Australia solving our own problems through our position as regional hegemon, don’t give a lot of hope.
But what about a global solution? According to the UNHCR, there are around 10 million refugees “of concern” at present – this figure doesn’t seem to vary much over time. Suppose there is a net inflow of one million people a year. Then if the world could resettle 2 million people a year, it ought to be possible to substantially reduce the number of people in refugee camps and similar conditions, and the length of time (currently many years) it takes to be resettled. That’s about 0.1 per cent of the population of the OECD, and comparable to the increased Australian intake.
Of course, things aren’t so simple. The decision on whether to flee a dangerous situation, or to stay and hope for the best depends in part on the destination. Only the truly desperate would willingly choose years in a refugee camp, even as an alternative to war and persecution. If the outside option improved, more people would flee such situations. But even this would be an improvement.
The treatment of asylum seekers has shown Australia at our worst, driven by fear and bigotry. But with a serious effort to drive a global response to the problems of refugees, we could go a long way to redeem ourselves.
fn1. The claim is phrased in terms of resettlement, so it presumably excludes countries of first refuge like Pakistan. But, as far as I can tell, it appears to be correct with respect to developed countries. This has been a big change in a relatively short time – older data shows us a long way down the list.
John Quiggin 
@Mick
Obviously you can supply some rough estimates of much sooner these lucky winners can expect to be accepted onto our boundless plains?
Considering that some of those lucky people have been in detention in refugee camps for decades, what are these improved odds? 50/50?
How should they celebrate? Champagne perhaps?
All “solutions” for refugees which don’t recognise the personal immorality of gross wealth disparity between me and them are pretty icky to me. Our government is not the only way we can act to address that injustice. However I’ll leave that aside in order to keep things on the party political level.
I’m too left for Labor generally and I’m still trying to figure out if Rudds policies ticks enough of my boxes. My gut instinct says that it can be tweaked rather than rejected to make the best government policy likely at this time.
Rudds’ “you will never be settled in Australia” threat bears some similarity to the tone in which people are kept under TPVs and Indefinite detention. It needs to be clarified that refugees settled in PNG can still make applications to emmigrate to Australia under other categories. It may be that after 5-10 years any “record” of having tried to enter Australia by an unsafe vessel to claim refugee status is forgotten to allow for a fresh refugee application to Australia.
Obviously its repugnant to have PNG shouldering the economic burden of people who want to come to Australia given our economies strength compared to PNGs. We have to properly compensate PNG for whats happening. Questions should be asked of the PNG people (not the leaders but the whole community) about how they feel about the deal.
We ought to remember that this policy doesn’t affect the many people who (generally with more money and privilege) enter Australia by plane and make applications for residency from within Australian borders. This is a policy specifically targetting the poorest and most desperate of applicants. Is it justified to save them from themself and their exploiters? Only in the context of Australia doing a lot, lot more. Rudd needs to make good on his promise to increase our overall intake of people under the humanitarian category.
@Tony C.
You inadvertently make a very good point.
1. “We” as Australians absolutely must not tolerate any people coming here, by subterfuge, to seek asylum.
2. “They” should come through the proper channels – ie: the queue.
3. The vast majority of the “queue jumpers” therefore come by commercial airlines.
4. In order to get into Australia by air they must have got a visa.
5. Solution: when applying for a visa to Australia you must swear that you will not seek asylum – we insert a special provision into the Oaths Act such that perjury in procuring a visa results in immediate forfeiture of all assets and deportation to PNG.
Makes perfect sense. No more asylum seekers, ever!
Happy Australia!
@Megan
So much sarcasm makes it difficult for me to know your meaning (pls. take the hint).
So is 4. & 5. correct?
@kevin1
Sorry to bother you with sarcasm, but could you be a bit more specific about your objection?
Specifically: Why not deport all those who seek asylum (from onshore in Australia) to PNG regardless of mode of arrival in Australia?
At least the ones who came on boats didn’t lie to get here, those who came on planes did.
@Megan
I’m asking what you know about a matter of fact. What happens to people who come from VOA countries as they don’t need a visa (or a lie) to arrive?
@kevin1
Nope sorry, not familiar with the jargon. Is “VOA” Visa On Arrival?
Unless I’m unaware of a massive rort, almost everyone – if not absolutely everyone – who flies into Australia and might be going to seek refugee status MUST have a visa in order to make it into the country.
Please enlighten me if I’m wrong about that.
To make my point abundantly clear:
Why shouldn’t Australia send to PNG anybody, regardless of mode of arrival, who seeks asylum from inside Australia?
Are there two queues?
Obviously the vast majority of air-arriving asylum requests are from Chinese but only about 30% of those are successful.
Why the differential treatment?
@hc
This is a very curious statement Harry and smacks of paternalism and eugenics.
@kevin1
What would be wrong with freezing net immigration? You now want to conflate voluntary immigrants with refugees. I indicated there is a way to take all current bona fide refugees up to required and equitable levels according to our international agreements. This way is to balance the numbers by reducing our voluntary immigrant numbers.
Until we decide a population policy, the wise thing to do would be to call a freeze on annual immigration numbers. From a risk management point of view, it is unwise to keep running a large net immigration program when we do not know what the sustainable population for this arid continent might be.
Those calling for open, unending immigration without a population policy are essentially subscribing to the theory that infinite growth can occur in a finite system. It’s another case of limits to growth denialism which is every bit as unscientific and irrational as climate change denialism.
It reminds me of St Augustine’s plea “Lord, make me chaste, but not yet.”
Now it’s, “Gaia, make us sustainable, but not yet.”
People just want to put off into the never-never the very crucial problem of transitioning from unrestrained growth to a sustainable and steady state economy and population.
The other source of blind fascination with endless population growth in Australia is nationalistic jingoism. People have visions of Australia becoming much more powerful with a much bigger population. That is actually the dark undertow of the fascination with boundless immigration into Australia. This is not for you, I am sure, but it is certainly the case with our major politicians and much of our rather unwise and ill-educated population.
Reply to Ronald Brak. My last reply is in moderation for too many (actually two) links, one being the link to Ronald’s post.
The geography, soils and rainfall regimes of the two “craton twins”, Australia and India, are very different. Let us look at the geography first.
Australia abuts no other plate or land mass and has no crustal upthrust zone. The India plate is moving north and colliding with the Asian Plate. This has created and is creating the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau. The existence of these high mountain ranges (to which Australia has nothing even remotely comparable) radically transforms and the rainfall regime, rain volumes, snowfall volumes, snowfed river volumes, erosion, siltation and the creation of fertile plains, large rivers and vast deltas. This is the real reason for the huge carrying capacity of northern India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The Indian continent is a profoundly different place geograhpically and ecologically to Australia.
The soils of this area were created by these conditions. This is unlike Australi where there ha sbeen no large upthrust, followed by epochs of erosion, to produce high rains, snowfed rivers and great plains of silt.Then the are the Western Ghats in western India.
http://www.imd.gov.in/section/climate/annual-rainfall.htm
There is absolutely no comparison to arid Australia. The proportion of Australia with passable rainfall is about the size of France. Due to poorer soils and higher unrealiability of rain patterns a rule of thumb would be that that portion would be about half as productive of France. This would suggest a capacity of about 33 million for Australia as a maximum. Given that many other resources are running out both globally and locally, why push it? I would hope we would stabilise at 25 million tops.
The population of the Sahara is 2.5 million people in 3.5 million square miles. The enormous arid interior of Australia is in many ways comparable to the Sahara in terms of human carrying capacity. An Australia with a population of 1.2 billion is highly improbable.
@Fran Barlow
You make no suggestion, I note, that the Greens have any plan to stop people drowning in the Timor Sea. I won’t throw around nasty words. It’s unnecessary.
@Megan
Sarcasm is usually a sign someone doesn’t have a handle on a debate. My guess is that people in camps will have a significantly better chance of getting to Australia under Rudd’s plan, but if they are forced to rely on the Greens they’ll never get to leave.
Is getting on a boat actually anymore dangerous for an Afghan refugee than spending 5-10 years in a camp in pakistan? It’s often asserted how dangerous the boats are, with good reason, but the comparison is never made (or at least not anywhere i’ve seen)
I note that members of the labor left like Doogie Cameron have swallowed this pill because they understand that the best way to get more refugees into this country is to ensure the population believes the process is orderly. Coorey’s article in today’s AFR is (surprisingly) very enlightening in that regard.
TYLER: Your argument destroys itself. The object of the Rudd policy is to have fewer drownings AND more people coming from refugee hell-holes (like those in Pakistan).
The Green solution is to solve all of our problems by moving immediately to a utopian society.
@Megan
I agree that the policy is contradictory. I have a few thoughts on this.
First, since the total number of asylum seekers arriving by plane is small and most are unsuccessful, it’s mainly a question of equitable treatment rather than something that will cause a policy breakdown
Second, while I’m unimpressed by arguments that rely on the legal details of the Refugee Convention, it may be that they constrain what the government can do
Third, and most important, the thing that troubles me most about the Rudd plan is continued reliance on offshore detention, even if the punitive element that was the dominant theme under Howard is removed. Subject to legality, I’d much prefer a plan where asylum seekers were assessed in Australia, not subject to detention, and either deported or resettled depending on the outcome.
Ikonoclast, see what I mean about “carrying capacity” not being a very clear question? There is certainly lots of room for debate and unless you give me a definition of “carrying capacity” as it relates to humans I can’t give you a clear answer. But to suggest Australia’s carrying capacity might be 33 million seems kind of nuts to me. Australia already produces enough food kilojoules from plants to feed about 200 million. Eliminating the current meat industry, adding millions of new agricultural workers, adding trillions in investment, and destroying most of Australia’s remaining natural heritage (bye-bye tree kangaroos) would increase the amount further.
But as I mentioned earlier, I don’t see how it really makes sense to look at Australia’s carrying capacity in isolation. As we are connected to to the rest of the world by oceans of water and air, Australia doesn’t really have an individual “carrying capacity”.
Fran, the refugee flows originate from big power interference in places like Syria. Can you really expect ordinary people to accept an open ended flow, when the rich and powerful won’t lift a finger to avoid these wars- in fact, arguably actively encourage them for the profit, from resource capture through to ordinance sales and indebtment of third world countries, despite the massive collateral damage and misery that comes from it all?
People look at profiteers like Murdoch and Cheney- our so-called betters- and think, “if its ok for them to guard their interests regardless of the human toll, how come not us?”
There is NO solution to any of it, until it comes from the top.
it does nothing of the sort mick, there’s no reason to assume that extra numbers will be taken from places like Pakistan, far more likely that there’ll be a deal to see more taken from our region, keeping the incentive to travel by boat as long as the boats stop at malaysia or indonesia.
particularly given the numbers needing urgent resettlement is around 1 million (from memory) and the numbers taken tend to be around 100k, so even with a functioning ‘queue’ the time spent is likely to be 10 years or so?
@Ikonoclast
Are you getting these statistics from somewhere, or are you making them up?
Let’s take cereals production. Australia has a little over twice as much land in cereals production as France (about 195,000 sq km compared with about 95,000 sq km). Over the decade up to 2011, yields have on average been a little under a quarter of the yields in France, and total production has been half that of France. But France is a major exporter of cereals itself, so it’s no guide to “carrying capacity” based on a presumed need for domestic food self-sufficiency. Domestic supply in France is only about 55% of French production; this implies that Australia could sustain, with current French levels of cereals usage, a population about 90% the size of France’s without any increase in production.
And of course yields have been increasing over time. In France, they’ve tripled since 1960. Australia has seen significantly slower growth in average yields, but the area under production has increased, presumably taking in less productive land.
@John Quiggin
I’m not sure what you mean by “small” (re: number of refugees ariving by air)?
I won’t do the link, but this paper says that refugee applicants by air was about 76% in 2000/01 and was about 48% in 2011/12 (at about 7,000 in both):
It is from the “aph” site and it’s called: “Asylum seekers and refugees What are the facts?”
If the electorate is really worried about refugees (as we’re assured they are – not just “the boats”) and the politically brilliant thing to do is “crack down”, it makes no sense NOT to treat the air arrivals the same.
If we’re going to be honest about the PNG Final Solution we should put air arrivals right in the centre of the debate too.
Actually, to increase Australia’s “carrying capacity” we should move Victorians to India. That would decrease the emission of greenhouse gasses and improve Australia’s “carrying capacity” or at least slow its degradation. Of course, moving Victorians just about anywhere, Norway, Botswana, etc. should accomplish that.
PrQ:
According to wiki, the UNHCR estimates that 200,000 to 400,000 Vietnamese boat people died at sea from causes like drowning, thirst and murder by pirates.
Your preference would recreate that scenario. Since those who have such a preference know (or ought to know) this would happen, the blood would be on their hands.
Thankfully the Oz public wont allow it.
Mel, I’d be more impressed by your concern if you were advocating large-scale resettlement directly from refugee camps or source countries. Since you’re not, I find it more than a little hypocritical.
Vietnamese boat people felt it worth risking their lives, and years in refugee camps to escape from conditions ranging from discrimination and persecution at best to imprisonment in re-education camps at worst. As I read it, you are saying they should all have been pushed back – if not, maybe you want to spell out what you do mean.
@Luke Elford
Luke, those are good individual points points you make but they don’t quite support your case. I haven’t checked your figures. I will take them as correct. It is certainly indicative that we have approximately double the area under grain cultivation compared to France and our yield per hectare is a little under a quarter of the yields in France. The 1/4 yield rate says a lot about our aridity and poor soils. I would like to see our relative use rates of fertilizer and farm fuel compared to France.
Farming twice the area for half the yield, implies much higher energy input costs. We are cultivating (read powering tractors and harvesters over) four times as much land per unit production. This implies possibly four times the energy costs but it could imply much less, maybe 2 times, due to efficiencies of scale and flatter terrain.
You make the implicit assumption that these inputs (energy and fertiliser) can be maintained indefinitely for Australian broad hectare, dry wheat farming requiring large fertiliser inputs. This assumption that these inputs can be maintained at current rates indefinitely is false given that peak conventional oil is in the past (2005) and that both IC engines and fertilsers depend on oil and/or natural gas inputs. Natural fertilzers (guano) are all but finished and the world faces a possible phosphorous shortage due to human disruption of the phosphorus cycle.
You are completing neglecting the issue of limits to growth. These limits are near and indeed in some respects already past. We are in overshoot now. My suggestion of limiting Australia to 25 million is probably on the high side for very long run sustainability.
Ronald Brak seems to object to my terminology of “carrying capacity” for humans. But it is a valid concept. We are animals after all. The land, even mediated by technology, will have an ultimate carrying capacity with respect to humans. Some people seem to want to believe that the laws of physics and biology don’t apply to humans. This is just hubris. Of course, these laws apply to us. Technology can stretch what is possible within the laws but we can still cannot break physical and biological laws and limits. Not while we remain material human beings.
@Megan
I was looking at the same data. Assuming a 30 per cent success rate, that’s 2000 people a year admitted as refugees after arriving by air, which is about 10 per cent of the around current humanitarian quota.
“blood on the hands” discussions depend upon the frame of reference – Australia is implicated for example in the flow of refugees from Iraq due to our participation in the invasion.
the australian government is implicated in the current drownings by asylum seekers because the policy for dealing with the boats on arrival, confiscation, means that people organising the voyages have no incentive to use a boat that has more than a single voyage in it. As an attempt to claim moral high ground for whatever position you are trying to argue for and dismiss some people as beyond the pail it’s great rhetoric but not particularly helpful.
Ikonoclast, I don’t object to your use of the term “carrying capacity” for humans, I just don’t know what it means. A definition would help.
In answer to the precise topic question;
Q. “Is there a solution to the refugee problem?
A. “No.”
The refugee problem is a wicked problem as defined by Wikipedia;
“”Wicked problem” is a phrase originally used in social planning to describe a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. The term ‘wicked’ is used, not in the sense of evil but rather its resistance to resolution. Moreover, because of complex interdependencies, the effort to solve one aspect of a wicked problem may reveal or create other problems.”
There is no perfect solution to satisfy even one interested party or view, let alone a perfect solution to satisfy all interested parties and views.
The best attempt at a solution would be prevention rather than cure. Thus, we should stop our unwarranted invasions and interventions in other countries. We should encourage and aid development (especially female rights and education) and sustainability in all countries. We should seriously tackle climate change and limits to growth as the fundamental crises of our era.
@Ronald Brak
The Wikipedia definition is quite reasonable;
“The carrying capacity of a biological species in an environment is the maximum population size of the species that the environment can sustain indefinitely, given the food, habitat, water and other necessities available in the environment. In population biology, carrying capacity is defined as the environment’s maximal load,[1] which is different from the concept of population equilibrium.
For the human population, more complex variables such as sanitation and medical care are sometimes considered as part of the necessary establishment.”
PrQ:
I’ve associated with Vietnamese people for 25 years and I married a VN woman 9 years ago to get her to Australia and reunite the family. All 12 brothers and sisters are now in Melbourne.
My alternate view is based on what I’ve learned over 25 years. The VNs who came to Oz were mostly middle class or small business people who sunk in to poverty after the war (1). One of my in-laws (now deceased) was a Captain in the South’s army and he was indeed tortured in a re-education camp and left with permanent disabilities. He was, however, perfectly safe from discrimination once he was released from the re-education camp provided he did nothing to offend the Communist Party. The same rule applied to everyone, not just former re-education camp inmates.
In the 25 years I’ve talked to hundreds of VN people, many of whom have the most amazing stories to tell about how they got out of Vietnam, not even one of them was facing persecution at the time they fled. They fled VN because they were highly motivated to improve their lives by escaping the grinding poverty that was imposed upon them by their harebrained and hopelessly corrupt government.
Interestingly, now that the VN economy is capitalist and people can get rich, the younger generation has lost its hatred of the regime and they often use the Communist flag their Facebook moniker. The fact that the regime is just as politically oppressive as before is a secondary concern.
(2) From what I can gather, the smaller numbers of “working class” VN who left on boats somehow found out about the departures and jumped on the boats just as they were leaving the shore, without paying the usual bribes etc…
Ikonoclast, I’ll take any further discussion of carrying capacity to the sandpit as it getting a bit off topic.
@John Quiggin
I understand that difference (and I accidently used “refugees” when I should have used “applicants” or “asylum seekers” – to differentiate between the two).
That still doesn’t explain the different treatment.
Surely the PNG policy should apply to everybody who seeks asylum after arriving here? If not, why not (apart from cynicism and hypocrisy)?
(Of course – my preferred treatment of asylum seekers of any sort has been made clear previously).
Many of the Vietnamese refugees had Chinese ancestry and were heavily persecuted by the government who feared a fifth column as initially tensions rose followed by the Chinese invasion of Northern Vietnam.
@Ikonoclast
Ronald Brak isn’t objecting to the concept of carrying capacity, only to your application of it at a country level, rather than a worldwide level. I agree with him.
Anyway, Australia’s fertiliser use per hectare of arable land is less than a quarter of France’s: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.CON.FERT.ZS. Why use France as a yardstick, if you think that modern agricultural production is inherently unsustainable?
KM:
The Communists provoked a pogrom against the Chinese after the Fall of Saigon but that was a contained episode. Subsequently the Chinese weren’t subject to discrimination other than some ongoing theft of wealth under the guise of expropriating the wealth of the capitalist classes.
@kevin1
I’m a little insulted by your suggestion that I’m a Chicago School neoliberal. I’d describe myself as a social democrat madly in love with all things Sweden. My member is Theresa “refugees smell” Gambaro, hopefully the shortest MP for Brisbane since 1909. One more thing: how the HELL do you know I’m younger than you? I probably am, but how do you know that? I’m actually curious. I also don’t mean to be insulting to anyone outside ALP/LNP leadership, and even then not most of them. But that’s beside the point.
I do not think our current approach to asylum seekers is about them. I think it’s about the perceived prejudices of Western Sydney swing voters, and an flawed institutional memory of the 2001 election.
I laid out what I consider an appropriate response. Do you agree?
what is plan B if rejected applicants burn the manus island camp down, which happened in oz a few years ago. there can be mysterious fires.
there was an escape up in broome. did not last long after the camp manager told the escappes that he had phoned ahead to the bus company to tell them not to sell them any tickets.
@Luke Elford
Those stats are kilos of fertilizer per arable land total and “Arable land includes land defined by the FAO as land under temporary crops (double-cropped areas are counted once), temporary meadows for mowing or for pasture”. Exactly how and how much FAO calculates our “temporary meadows for mowing or for pasture” to be could affect and distort the stats considerably. We would have to dig deeper to see if we are comparing apples to apples.
The France analogy was to try to get us to jettison the arid part of our country from all our calculations. Sans our arid zone we are about the size of France and very roughly about half as productive. Our higher inputs per hectare yield for wheat (if my assertions are correct in this area) would indicate that we will become marginal before France does with regard to wheat production. Thus unsustainability will impact us early in the piece not late in the piece.
The current model of food production is unsustainable. We will have to find a new model.
I am taking the discussion off topic so I won’t mention this issue again unless you want to take it to the sandpit.
Each new population addition is presumed to be entitled to emit 20t of CO2 and consume 0.9 ML of water each year, most likely far higher than in their previous host countries. For example it is expected most adult Australians will drive a car. Are family re-unions via legal migration envisaged? This could prove costly if they don’t become taxpayers in the short term.
I agree there is an opportunity to redeem our reputation.
As an international problem we have to see things through others eyes, in particular from the point of view of Indonesia. For example, why is it possible, as reported, to obtain a $25 visa for 30 days from any international airport in Iran? My guess this may be related to a reciprocal travel arrangement for the Shia of West Sumatra and Aceh.
Then it seems the major drivers of refugees are war, persecution and natural disasters. Peaceful conflict resolution, as distinct from military expeditions, might be to our long term advantage.
Thirdly, there is the decline of low skill industrial jobs setting up a potential dynamic of fear and scapegoating, often fueled by what passes for political rhetoric.
@Mick
Mick …
People drowning in the waters between Australia and the major aggregation points (currently Indonesia and Malaysia) is a function of the following factors
1. (Obviously) the geography. Australia is an Island
2. Australian government policies e.g.
a) The policy of excising lands in Australian jurisdiction from the “migration zone” so as to deny putative asylum seekers access to the courts
b) the policy of scuttling all craft seized after an irregular marine passage, which leads those organising the passage to use the cheapest craft possible and to overload as much as is vaguely plausible. This has the added advantage of making towing or boarding difficult.
c) the policy of crewing such craft with adolescents — since adolescents are treated less harshly by Australian courts.
d) push factors from the source countries — here, the defeat of the Tamils in Sri Lanka, the chaos in Pakistan and Afghanistan and Iraq and Iran, each of which has been at least partially a consequence of Australian state policy towards these states
e) slow processing of claims at major aggregation points — some “applicants” have waited 9 years …
In each of these cases (with the exception of geography), the factors predisposing drowning are the result of action by the Australian state. Assuming, purely for the sake of argument, you really were concerned about “drowning in the Timor Sea” it’s to the Australian government you should direct your question. The Greens opposed the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, called for a peaceful resolution in Sri Lanka and opposed excising territory. We opposed criminalising those assisting with passage — after all, seeking protection is not illegal. We favoured much speedier processing in major aggregation points and we do favour equitable burden-sharing and still do. Very few would risk their lives on unseaworthy craft if there were actually “a queue” and timely regular updates about one’s progress through it and if the camps were actually places where one could live with a modicum of dignity. Regrettably, there isn’t a queue and so people must live (and watch their children live) in squalor for an indefinite period of time.
To imply that we Greens are in some way, a party to people drowning is mere cant and misdirection. We have advocated solutions, but these offend the political appetites of the major parties — which want to pander to the majors.
You surely know that if 100% or even 95% of those seeking irregular marine passage met a tragic and untimely end outside of our rescue zone, once the pro-forma crocodile tears had been shed, there would be no policy problem for the regime. Those few that made it here would be processed quickly and that would be that. Perhaps they’d even be welcomed as courageous and deserving of our generosity. The problem is not that the casualty rate is unacceptably high — quite the reverse. The problem for the regime is that the casualty rate is unacceptably low, and this spurs existential angst amongst the mullet and ugg boot demographic which can be used as a wedge against the rightwing populist ALP by the rightwing populist LNP. Along with faux concern about “people waiting patiently in camps” and “the people smugglers’ business model”, “stopping drownings” is, from our xenophobic populists simply deeply offensive cant.
Calling us out about such matters would be laughable were the misery of those fleeing persecution not so tragic.
.
@Hermit
Australia’s emissions targets are currently fixed without reference to population growth.
Your water use calculation appears to include irrigated agriculture, which isn’t going to grow much no matter how many refugees we admit. People in Brisbane average less than 200 litres/day, or 0.07 ML per year, for household use.
@Hermit
Ah, now we are getting closer to the drivers of this problem. Your problem is that if people come here, they will get to live as well as we do here, rather than in squalor. It’s all very well to try avoiding being brutalised by the state or some gang of state-backed thugs, but isn’t there some way in which people could simply accept that the circumstances of their birth would always result in them having lives that were nasty, brutish and short? What gives them the right to think they can start using more than 0.9ML of water each year? 50cc per day should be enough, surely?
You think there are just too many humans, and frankly you’d like those outside of the country who aren’t much like us to go suffer and die out of sight some place else so that you can continue to live congenially.
It’s breathtaking and shameful really, and once again so dreadful that people making these kinds of claim so often appeal on against those seeking protection ostensibly on behalf of those people “waiting patiently in camps in Africa”, when they have no desire to see them come here either.
Can’t help telling the latest economist joke I heard.
“An economist and an ecologist have fallen from a tall building. The ecologist is panicking but the economist remains calm. Don’t worry, he says: “demand will create a parachute”.
A great element of truth in this joke as neoclassical economists (not our host) clearly think the economy is freestanding from the environment and from all physical and biological laws.
The difficulty with success rate calculations is that you need to look at the success rate of appeals from the first decision to the RRT – my memory is that counting appeals the success rate of applications for asylum of those arriving by air was closer to 50% than 30% – but I’m going from memory from an address by William Maley from ANU a few weeks ago.
@Fran Barlow
“You think there are just too many humans.”
Actually there are too many humans. The world is overpopulated. And yes, we in the West are over-developed and using too many resources. The BRICs are now attempting to join us. (In living standards I mean, not to all migrate to the West.)
It would be nice if the world had enough resources to accommodate all of us and the living standards we have or desire to have. However, that is not possible.
When did discussion of overpopulation become taboo among the Greens? I would have thought that the Greens would still understand the relationship between overpopulation, lack of sustainability and ecological damage. They certainly used to.
Saying there are too many humans on the planet now is an objective observation given the facts of limits to growth and climate change. It does not automatically imply support for draconian population reduction. It can imply support for enlightened policies to stabilise population. The key policy there is to achieve equal rights, opportunities and education for women which factors best correlate with replacement rate reproduction.
The cruellest types of population reduction will increase in occurrence (wars, starvation, disease) if we don’t adopt enlightened global population stabilisation policies now.
@Doug
True, but the latest figures from that “aph” paper (2011/12) put requests for asylum at about 50/50 between those coming by sea and those coming by air.
The problem is one cohort gets sent to PNG forever and the other gets processed here, and if declared successful get to live here having jumped the imaginary queue far more comprehensively than anyone in a boat. That is double standards and hypocrisy at its worst.