On Tue, 4 Mar 2014 17:38:26 Tim Josling wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 2, 2014 at 9:02 PM, Russell Coker wrote:
> > So when most people are craven cowards only the contrarians are brave?
>
> No I don't think that making status displays (or meta status-displays) is
> related to being courageous. My point was that there are many ways of
> status whoring and no-one is immune from the temptation.
The issue of immigration in Australia is very much about cowardice.

I don't see why. Most people espouse the views of their peer group, which is not particularly courageous.

You might have the view that politicians are cowardly because they are not following the best, most moral policy, in a craven attempt to curry favour with bogans and such. But to say that you would first have to establish that there is such an alternative... and none has come to light in the several months of discussion here (other than mine, which no-one has approved of as far as I recall. Calling the "Greens"' document a policy is an abuse of language).

For what it's worth IMHO the conservatives' immigration policy is about a) Adding to the labour supply in order to keep wages down and to weaken trade unions b) Keep the numbers high so that industries that depend on population growth - housing, infrastructure - remain prosperous. c) Refugees are not desired by big business, so except for ideological reasons eg the Vietnamese boat people or perhaps to populate regional areas the conservatives don't want them.

I have more trouble understanding the rationale for Labor's immigration policy. Why for example would a Labor party support high levels of immigration in general? In Rudd's case it seems to have been some combination of the Biblical "be fruitful and multiply" with "more peasants means more taxes" (Peter Turchin) and egotistical desire for Australia to be a "middle power". The ALP also has a historical association with immigrant communities; with multiculturalism and family reunion immigration as vote winners among the affected communities. Rudd did say that he was trying to "reduce pressure on the labour market", which is Treasury-speak for forcing wages down - which suggests he is naive and was snowed by the bureaucrats. Perhaps this was combined with a desire to be humanitarian and nice, combined with a high degree of naivete about the consequences of an accommodative refugee policy. When their policy turned into a fiasco showcasing their incompetence they were forced to change. It is hard to be sure if they were more responding to obvious signs that their policy was a disaster or to signs of community hostility to boat people.

Pass.

Tim