On Mon, 7 Apr 2014 13:40:16 Tim Josling wrote:
On Fri, Apr 4, 2014 at 5:31 PM, Russell Coker <russell@coker.com.au> wrote:
Actually many petitions achieve a result.
A petition may well precede a change in policy but this does not show a causal relationship.
Often a petition gets a result after other measures have failed.
Politicians take notice of
a) Polls b) Focus groups c) People who control large donations (eg trade union heavies in the ALP, large corporates, wealthy individuals). d) People who can stir up trouble and impact voting behaviour (eg the mining tax campaign).
Petitions meet D and they both indicate and drive factors A and B.
e) Cogent demonstrations of better policy options in terms of achieving the politicians' objectives.
That doesn't seem to be the case. There's no shortage of examples of politicians following bad policy for decades in spite of better options. One of the best examples of this is the "war on drugs".
In my days in politics I heard politicians regularly refer to these but not on a single occasion to petitions. In earlier days petitions were a crude kind of opinion poll but serve little purpose now (but see below).
I remember being told by a state secretary of the right faction of the ALP (in those days at least the factions had official office bearers) that a lot of the activities that politicians encourage people to undertake are there specifically to consume time and energy that might otherwise being deployed causing "trouble" and getting in the way of the real decision making process. He had had quite a few beers thus his frankness. He cited party conferences (since they became non-binding), branch meetings, fund raising, and policy assemblies as examples. He did not mention petitions but they would fit.
The fact that he didn't mention petitions is probably because they work.
Trying to convince other people just adds your voice to the crowd of people shouting. The chance of making any difference at all is slight.
The fact that you are trying to convince me disproves your claim. I almost never argue with people who believe in the power of prayer. Most people who believe that prayer works have political opinions that I disagree with and I'm very happy to have them waste their time praying and then do nothing else.
No-one has responded to my challenge to demonstrate their sincerity and commitment to the cause they are claiming to be so passionate about by a) Demonstrating they are directing substantial amounts of their personal resources to such good causes, and b) Filling in the answers to the policy questions so show they have actually thought through the issues.
There aren't any real policy problems. Take in everyone who arrives, the ones who are determined to be legitimate refugees (the vast majority of people who arrive by boat) are allowed to stay, the rest are returned.
Several people directed me to the collection of generalities and platitudes which is the Greens web page on immigration. This is not even close to a serious attempt. Given the Greens' poor record of predicting the consequences of refugee policy, an analysis is clearly needed. Eg they contemptuously dismissed suggestions that a softer policy would result in an increase in boat people. They could not have been more wrong.
The current Liberal policy of treating people badly enough that risking death is a good alternative is not a viable policy.
* Repeatedly claiming that you have provided answers is not the same as actually doing so.
As long as you ignore the substance of all email sent to you there's not much point in going to the effort of addressing your "questions".
There was nothing below, just text quoted from another message. Did you
forget to write something?
The text below was a list of questions that an honest attempt at an alternate policy needs to address. I reinstate it below.
You need to learn to quote properly.
In my proposal, posted to this list earlier I suggested a large increase in our refugee intake, combined with a hard line on boat people. Strangely, this was followed by insinuations that I am a racist who wants to keep refugees out of the country! Apparently anyone who disagrees with the Greens' stance on immigration must be a racist. And I have actually studied the issues and articulated a policy. Yet somehow I lack the courage to take on these issues, or something.
Everyone should be treated decently, even criminals. When someone thinks that refugees who have not been convicted of any crime (or even accused) should be treated worse than convicted criminals the only plausible explanations are cowardice and racism.
1. What measures would you put in place to discourage people arriving by boat or plane, if any?
For the legitimate refugees nothing other than trying to make things better in other parts of the world. Overall we would have had fewer refugees arriving at Australia if there hadn't been wars in Vietnam or Iraq.
2. What change would you make to the refugee quota? Would there still be a limit?
I believe that the UN agreements that Australia signed don't permit a quota.
3. Would the arrivals get work permits? How would they be supported if they did not get work?
They would get jobs. The number of people immigrating from the EU and the US far exceeds the number of refugees. If it's considered that the overall population increase is too much then we could restrict the number of people allowed to immigrate from other countries.
4. To what degree would you vet arrivals to see if a) they are 'genuine' refugees b) They are criminals, terrorists, or fanatics of one sort or another c) They have communicable illnesses? What level of appeals would be possible? Would we pay for legal aid throughout a long-drawn-out legal process?
I don't think that the situation with communicable illnesses is any worse than for people who arrive by plane. In fact there's a significant advantage in accepting people who arrive from boat in that the probability of someone arriving before they develop symptoms is a lot lower. In terms of terrorists the issue has always been people who have the money to buy a plane ticket. Let's not be afraid of terrorists too.
5. When people arrive would they be detained or monitored? Describe these arrangements. Would this depend on the answers to the previous question?
If they are refugees then they shouldn't be detained.
6. What would you do with people who are not 'genuine' refugees, or who are otherwise undesirable? Would you deport or detain them?
Deport them of course.
7. What do you do with people whose status is uncertain? People arrive without documentation, they may lie or exaggerate their predicament. You cannot exactly ask, say, the Iranian government "It is true that if this person were returned then you would persecute them?" and expect a useful answer.
Give them a decent place to live in the mean time, some place that doesn't make them want to kill themself. Treat them as well as we want Australian citizens to be treated in such situations. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/