On Mon, 10 Mar 2014 16:36:15 Tim Josling wrote:
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.
https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/r/stat-as.php Being scared of a tiny number of immigrants is cowardice. We are talking about a very small number of people, see the above page for statistics. In 2012-2013 there were 10,898 final grant applications, that's nothing compared to the ~130,000 migrants we get who aren't refugees. If there was a problem with population growth then we could deduct the number of refugees from the quota for other immigration, EG we could accept ~120,000 economic migrants each year.
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.
Absolutely.
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).
You are just too cowardly to accept anything that doesn't keep foreigners out. Except for the foreigners who can afford an airline ticket.
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.
Actually refugees should be good for business. The main reason for wanting more low wage workers who aren't refugees is racism.
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 don't represent workers as well as they claim to do. Some people who used to always vote Labor are switching to the Greens for this reason.
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.
Also he's catering to rich voters and tea-party types (lumpen-proletariat) who vote against their own interests. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/