Blah blah blah. Socialist lefties rolling out the inevitable racist slur yet again when ever anyone dares to question immigration.

Give it up Frank More, we are not intimidated by your racist slurs any longer.

It is not about race or religion, it is primarily about numbers and ecological sustainability on this continent and about passing on an Australia to our children at least as good as the one we have enjoyed.

We have local generational responsibilities as well as global responsibilities.

Appologies that should be Tattered Remnant rather than Frank Morre.

And why is this page doing multiple posts of the same message.

Societies, and political systems break down when resources are stretched, particularly when there are ethnic divisions. It manifests itself in different ways in different countries. Some have more practical safety valves like legal emigration. And come countries, that have greater food, water and energy resources take longer to break down.

I agree, certain Australian politicians are cynically channeling peoples' concerns over rapid population growth and subsequent erosion of Australia's quality of life, and directing it at a handful of people who arrive on boats.

We have the most generous per capita refugee resettlement program in the world, so it is certainly based on compassion but is stretching our capacity given our massive population growth we are concurrently failing to absorb (3-4 times the per capita growth of comparable countries like NZ/USA). If you base it on "need", it would be endless. See previous post.

A properly managed stable population policy (immigration (including 14k refugees) = emigration) would likely take most of the heat out of the asylum seeker issue. We could do a far better job of assisting them.

Oversimplification huh?

As is your naive notion that letting in a few thousand asylum seekers per year, or even a few million, from Afghanistan and else where will significantly relieve the suffering in the developing world etc.

Actually its not an over simplification if you consider other factors. The planet is a closed system. That is it has finite resources that we are consuming.

The never ending growth model and debt financing that underpins our economic system is unsustainable. You should consider M.K.Hubbert's paper - Exponential Growth as Transient Phenomenon in Human History. Many people tried to refute Hubbert but his systems approach illustrates the problem and no amount of technological 'innovation' will offset what will be an inevitable resource and then human population collapse.

No, it will relieve suffering for the individuals who seek asylum though. if that's a few thousand people a year or even a few more, that's not a naive notion. Relieving suffering generally in the developing world is another kettle of fish.

That's more an issue of how we use the finite resources. It's no secret that the developed world is responsible for most of the fossil fuel use in the last 200 years that has contributed to our most pressing disaster, climate change. To suggest overpopulation, such that the entire 7 billion on this planet are accountable for that is just plain wrong - in reality it is a small portion. That's not to say rampant population growth is a problem, but rising income levels alleviate incentives for bigger families. The best way to stabilise population is to ensure economic development in the developing world, and the way to do that is economic growth. The energy driver of that growth (and distribution) is what matters. In the past it's been slaves. As Kirk Sorensen said, we became a bit more civilised when that became carbon. There's a host of energy possibilities that will revolutionise the way we can pursue development in the future - check the energy/environment section. I'm more interested in solutions for humanity rather than solutions Luddites champion that secure riches for a minority.
Yes, overpopulation is oversimplification.

All of this is an aside to the asylum seeker debate. It's a shame population even gets talked about with this issue. Some facts, 14000 asylum seekers a year. 5000 held in detention centres, of those held in detention only roughly 10% need to be detained.
i.e. asylum seekers are adding 0.06% to the population - stop talking about overpopulation when it comes to asylum seeker issues.

Re your "developed world is responsible for most of the fossil fuel use in the last 200 years". Two responses: 1) Must be hard to be part of the problem Adit... And: 2) That history has created an economy and social environment so many from the Developing World want to join.
Stow your inane, parroting guilt trips Adit.
The west has created almost every innovation that the Developing World wants to copy.

Too bad the facts don't meet your theory.
Take the PRC for example.
It took control of its population growth, and its industrial growth is set to increase by some 500% over the forthcoming years, doubling the world's total output of greenhouse gases.

No, the real culprit is free trade and the WTO.
We need to get back to protectionism.
Only via this mechanism will we keep a lid on green house gas development.

And Australia is over populated now Adit.
You may not know that, so, I'll point it out to you.

it's not a guilt trip Frank. It's a fact. I haven't denied the luxuries the west's exploitation of resources has afforded us. My point is that it's rich to then resist the same in the developing world. it's just not going to fly. As for the statement -> "the west has created almost every innovation....." It illustrates your lack of insight perfectly. Let me suggest to you that human history goes back further than 200-300 years. I'd implore you to take a look at this history and see how balances of power and influence in the world have shifted between nations.

PRC: would love to see where you got this information from that suggests population control was responsible for PRC's industrial growth.

Your logic is a confusing mess. export oriented trade is what led growth in PRC and a lot of SE asian countries (though i'm certainly no dogmatic proponent of free trade). There are only two mechanisms for keeping a lid on ghg's. ceasing economic growth/population growth or finding another source of energy. we know population growth is trending downwards - this will continue and we should certainly encourage policies that support this trend. But this will still see the absolute level reach approx 9 billion by 2040 - and stabilising soon after. There's no way out of this, unless you're planning to engage in mass murder. Ceasing economic growth is obviously not an option because sovereign nations of the world, particularly the developing world will not tolerate a lower quality of life for the sake of the rich world and future generations (nor should they). There's ethical dilemmas there, but more to the point it's completely unrealistic. That leads us to finding another source of energy. This is where the answers lie, and thankfully they do not rely on the help of you or i, or the population party.
Back to PRC, yes they're a key contributor to ghg's. They're also the world's largest manufacturer of solar pv's, and invests more in renewables research than any other country. This year it's also became the first country to fund the development of a liquid flouride thorium reactor - once optimised to commercial scale these will give clean cheap abundant energy, but also help desalinate water cleanly, not to mention produce liquid fuels. My point? PRC did not just enact the one child policy then put its feet up - it realised there's more to sustainability than population control.

William: it's the way that we live and power our lives that matters. Your examples regarding haiti and ethiopia. Were these countries poor before their population explosions? Yes they were.

All you've made a case for is the fact that population growth in areas that experience poverty and environmental stress exacerbates this. Not particularly enlightening i must say. Population is NOT the everything issue, and to suggest that it is, is unscientific and dangerous.

Happy to engage in a debate on this in another thread, but for now i'll leave this so more on topic debate proceeds.

Adit

You said:
"we know population growth is trending downwards - this will continue and we should certainly encourage policies that support this trend."

Great to hear you admit that population growth is a problem (at least in that paragraph). However, whilst the population growth RATE is trending downwards, population growth is not. Please review this video covering the exponential function:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY

...and this is no time for complacency. The UN has recently updated the mid century projection by a lazy billion, to 10b, and an upper 'peak' as high as 15b. 7b is a catastrophe for our species as well as most others, let alone 9, 10 or even 15.

The key here is economic development that is sustainable - i.e. living within the sustainable (replaceable) resource base. GDP deosn't cut it in this respect and must be replaced as a measure of 'wellbeing' asap. So yes, ceasing economic 'growth' as you measure it (GDP) IS an option. It is our only option.

Numbers (people) come before consumption, so your approach which ignores numbers is in fact the unscientific and dangerous approach. It would be helpful if you accepted that both need to be addressed. Population impacts on EVERYTHING, and that is why it is the everything issue. However, a sustainable future merely starts with a stable population.

Best to discuss population in this thread. If you ignore unsustainable population growth, like Haiti and Ethiopia, you chase your tail on EVERYTHING else.

Finally, it's not helpful to simplify environmental impact by only speaking of GHG emissions. This is just one of many environmental impacts of growing population across the world (regardless of consumption levels). And I admire your faith in unproven technology!

Ive acknowledged in previous posts that population stabilisation is important. I'm well versed in the exponential function. I maintain that to put everything down to population growth is oversimplification.

so the forecast is 10 billion by 2050.

How do you propose to reduce that number? What do you think we can reduce that number down to with "population stabilisation" policies"? How much do you think we can affect the final number that population stabilises at?

If those policies include education and career choices for women, I'd agree, but that is part and parcel of development.

Haiti and Ethiopia: read back what i said "All you've made a case for is the fact that population growth in areas that experience poverty and environmental stress exacerbates this." - you've shown through your own reasoning why impoverished countries need development (education, health, infrastructure, jobs) to curb population growth. What are you talking about?

Certainly GDP isn't everything, but GDP per capita gives a fair indication of a country's standard of living in relative terms. There's strong correlations between HDI and GDP per capita, why suggest economic growth that is aligned with development be the best way to alleviate poverty in developing nations. It matters not whether you agree, because this is the model on which we have seen and will continue to see masses of people breaking free of poverty in places like india and china amongst a multitude of others. A key is to deliver this in Africa, which is where birth rates are still extremely high.

I've also acknowledged other environmental impacts. LFTR (or IFR another 4th gen nuclear option) is a proven technology. As is solar thermal. I suggest you look at the environment+energy section. Sure climate change is not the only problem. peak oil; LFTR is a proven technology that can synthesize liquid fuels, near zero carbon energy generation that can also desalinate water effectively. Peak phosphorus; urine recycling technologies will go a long way, not to mention increasing efficiencies so we stop wasting up to 80% of the phosphorus we actually harvest as is currently the case. There's obviously more.

The point is yes there are a lot of problems, there are solutions too; better we spend time and money on realising these solutions than unrealistic ones like trying to reduce population numbers in the developing world while keeping them poor.

Where are you getting "7b is a catastrophe for our species" from? I'd love to see some sources. Statements like this is why i called you an "overpopulation spruiker". Even the 30 year update to Limits to Growth suggests that the planet can support near 8 billion sustainably. You need more than numbers for science. What do those numbers mean?

I agree population impacts on everything. But everything impacts on everything. The planet is a complex dynamic system. This is why population is not the everything issue.

Rather than concentrating on educating woman and raising their living standards to western levels why don't we instead concentrate on providing them with contrception and the knowledge of how to use it.

I seriously doubt that many third world woman would choose to have children continually through their reproductive lives if they had access to contraception and paid work within their communities.

And as for what to do about the potential of 10 billion humans on Earth.....you just don't get it do you.

It is VERY unlikely that the human poopulation will reach that level because wars and gencocde over scarce resources will almost certainly cause population crashes throughout the third world and possibly even in parts of Europe if illegal immigration continues at current levels.

Adit

You said: "trying to reduce population numbers in the developing world while keeping them poor"

Moral manipulation won't earn you respect. Attempting to put these words in people's mouths simply undermines you.

"it's the way that we live" is a roadbloack and a key reason why we have failed to make ground on global poverty or environmental sustainability. We're going backwards fast under your strategy. Unless you have pactical plans that can be realistically implemented, you should abandon rigidity and accept that we need to accept a clear international focus on population numbers.

Australia can take a leadership position on population. We should tie foreign aid wherever possible to the improvement of governance and economic and environmental sustainability, with a particular focus on women's rights and education and on opportunities for couples to access family planning services. If you don't think population aid would provide help on an individual and national level, read this story from Africa:

10 children: "I didn't know how to stop"
http://www.watoday.com.au/world/magic-pill-to-turn-the-population-tide-20111203-1ocgx.html#ixzz1fXCBsITm

You mention Africa, but we also have enormous local issues: The Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Kiribati, PNG, The Philippines, etc, etc. rather than procrastinating on numbers and glibly asserting "it's the way we live", you should acknowledge that every development and environmental goal we have will be unachievable unless we make numbers a central focus. We live on a finite planet and need more than a strategy of hope.

Until next time, Merry Christmas.

"Rather than concentrating on educating woman and raising their living standards to western levels why don't we instead concentrate on providing them with contraception and the knowledge of how to use it."

Providing contraception is a component of raised standard of living.
Providing knowledge of how to use contraception is a component of education.

However, much as you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink, you can't get women to use the contraception if all the economic and sociological drivers (eg the need for labour at the farm, a husband made brutal, unthinking and chauvinistic by the socioreligious construct in which these people must live) are pushing the other way.

With a bit of luck, human population will crash before widespread ecological collapse through emergence of some suitably lethal virus in the next few decades. That will give the rest of our (finite) life support system the opportunity to recover.

Call it what you will. David Arthur put it well before you (though i don't agree with his fatalism towards the end), you are looking at encouraging small components of what most of us would call development, without looking at the entire package of what we would call development. It is that strategy that has failed. Once again, let me call it as it is - Your policy is out of self-interest, it's not about sustainable development, or poverty reduction, if it was it would be more holistic and hence more effective; it's another form of subtle imperialism.

Yes we do have enormous local issues. Let me suggest to you once again that countries experiencing higher rates of development are seeing their fertility rates drop faster than anywhere else. Singapore, Thailand amongst others saw their fertility rates drop below replacement rate in recent decades during periods of high economic growth. Check world bank data for this and do a careful analysis of the key aggregates, gdp growth, gdp per capita, child mortality/life expectancy, fertility, population/popluation growth. You'll see gdp growth/child morality/life expectancy improvements coincides with falls in fertility - so the investment that drives the former with some lag, must drive the latter.

The thing I want to assert again is that all of these nations pursuing high economic growth is not going to be stopped. It's immoral, and unrealistic. This is why all modes of research into changing the engine of that growth is so important - i.e. where the energy and materials that drives growth comes from, how well we recycle what we use, how efficiently we use land etc - the sooner those methods are changed and new ones adopted, the sooner we can reduce our impact. That's the key moving forward, and it's why people like yourself and others commenting on this thread will continue to make little impact.

Lastly you keep mentioning the importance of numbers, yet you've failed to substantiate your own. Please let me know where you got "7b is a catastrophe for our species" from? I'll reiterate; the 30 year update to Limits to Growth by Meadows et al, which is by no means optimistic, refutes this claim convincingly.

Nor can youmake the horse drink by leading to water through economic development.

Personally I would prefer an enforced one child policy or a genetically engineered fertility control biological vector than the anarchy, misery and suffering that a lethal epidemic would cause.

The Good News is that papers are being published in Nature and Science about airborne transmission of H5N1 influenza virus (among ferrets; apparently these animals are considered suitably representative of human populations, much as are pigs).

It's also noteworthy that universal influenza vaccines are being developed; after treating your preferred (Anointed?) population to the universal vaccine, it is simply a matter of releasing the appropriately virulent strain of virus.

You have successfully missed my point about thirsty horses.

All your bleating, whinging and moaning about genocide at the hands of a deadly epidemic is laughable.

Idiots like you who refuse to take over population as a serious threat to humanity and civilisation are the very people or are making such a scenario more likely.

In advocating a last resort to china style one child policy or fertility control via a genetically engineered vector I would be seeking to avoid inflicting suffering on the third world as much as possible under the difficult circumstances that people like you have brought about by your head in the sand attitude.

IT won't be people like me who advocate immunising the west against such diseases at the expense of the third world. IT will be people like you who do that and whose 'noble charity' is nothing more than thinly disguised self interest.

On the contrary, given the west's consumption levels and imperialist economic attitiudes towards the third world, it wouldn't hurt it to undergo some population reduction via an epidemic along with the third world. Clean out some of the 'dead flesh' that has accumulated in our society.

But on the whole I would prefer it done through family planning etc, enforced if absoutely necessary across the board, third world and west alike.

Mr Boyle, as ever, you misunderstand what I'm attempting to communicate.

I'm not bleating, whingeing or moaning about anything; all I'm doing is pointing out plausible scenarios IF humanity doesn't address its excessive fecundity. Our susceptibility to transmissible disease increases with human numbers, particularly as natural and built infrastructure deteriorates.

Family planning shouldn't need to be enforced anywhere. Why not? Because as people become more educated, they get the personal autonomy to CHOOSE. That is, the way forward is to allow people and nations to develop to help themselves.

I'm fully supportive of developng nations pursuing economic development and Australian should continue to assist generously, but like Australia, it should be rapidly transformed to ensure a focus on sustainable development. Otherwise economic 'growth' is a mirage.

But developing nations won't achieve it without a central focus on stabilising population numbers. By doing this, nations protect their food security, improve infant and maternal health, maximise resilience to climate change, free up investment to build prosperity and avoid labour exploitation.

You're clearly unfamiliar with the objectives I support, or you would not be trying to misrepresent me so blatantly with claims of "self interest". And your abstract claim of "imperialism" really hammers home just how insecure you are about people taking action on population.

Over 2 billion people live on less than $2 a day and over 1b go to sleep at night hungry. Not a catastrophe? I hope you enjoy your relative comfort tonight!

You can dither and deny on population, and continue to fail miserably on development. We'll take action.

"... for policy guidance, the only sources on this issue that can be trusted are Howard, Ruddock and the LNP who have been absolutely consistent ..."

This means storing them on Nauru long enough to acquire the need for psychiatric services, then belatedly acknowledge the veracity of their claims? That's no solution, that's a huge waste of scarce public funds that could be better spent on regime change in the nations that drove such desperate people to flee ... or on encouraging other nations in this region to develop a regional response to the problem (starting with refugee centres in Malaysia?).

David, mate, psych services! for what? how many ?
Nauru and TPV's which shut down the trade. vs ? How many hundreds of deaths at sea?
That's what happened Dave.

You can add up Dave?

Add up the bodies!

Did you vote for this? Did you vote for Rudd/Gilliard? If you did Dave, you played an unintentional role in these deaths at sea. For as sure as night follows day, the change of a previously successful policy has directly led to hundreds of children - who have no say in their parents stupidity - hundreds of children, women and men, drowning at sea...

Do you own a Greens or ALP membership card David?
These are cards of Death.
Their past and present policies on this area are deliverers of death.
There cannot be any doubt in the minds of anyone doing an unbiased and reasoned analysis.
Australians ought to be universally disgusted by the actions and mouthings of these parties.

Get this into your head David. The vast majority of people "fleeing persecution" travel through safe but poor nations to get to us, at Christmas Island.
Any tourist leaving nice, safe, Islamic, Indonesia, to get onto a wrecked boat is after a "better life".

All the rest is just lawyer talk.

We have No business interfering in the internal affairs of other nations.
We simply don't have a good track record of understanding the culture and circumstances of others to entrust our incompetent media/party leadership to come up with the right policy mix for any other nation.

Frank, your reply to my remark shows that my point completely eluded you. Let me spell it out in very simple language.

Sending asylum seekers to Malaysia would be an even better deterrent than the Pacific solution, because the smuggled arrivals would be sent to the back of a much larger queue in Malaysia. Further, it would be vastly less expensive than the Pacific solution.

The major reason that the Libs blocked it is immediately obvious: there is no way that any Parety under Tony Abbott would ever admit that someone else has had a better idea. So don't lecture me about high-mindedness.

And the price for the Malaysia "Deal" Arthur?
Was it 5 Burmese refugees for every single Middle Eastern Tourist?
Or was it more?

The combination of 1-2 years on Nauru, plus TPVs did the deed.
The results obtained were quite clear.

As another policy line to add is our withdrawal from automatic NZ to Australia immigration.
This policy is yet another attempt of our leftist, traitorous internationalists to sign over control of our nation to other powers. The abuse of this one way treaty to enable the further bloating of our cities and welfare tragedies is sickening. It's abuse by NZ accepting refugees in the knowledge they'll move to Aust asap should put this policy modification at the forefront of thinking on this issue.

Tying it off completely would involve Australia signing off withdrawal from the refugee convention and a review of laws that have enabled our loss of sovereignty and the mass deaths by drowning.

Apart from the above, we are in a furious agreement.

The Good News is, Burma's military appear to be returning to barracks, permitting democratic rule. The major implication of this for Australia is that the ethnic cleansing of Burma's more remote regions will cease, and there will be fewer Burmese refugees.

The Good Things about the Malaysia solution are that
i) it stops the boats HUMANELY (because boat people go straight to the back of the queue in Malaysia)
ii) it is more humane than Nauru
iii) it is cheaper than Nauru
iv) it is a start on getting other nations in this region involved in re-settling refugees, and consequently other nations in the region realise that refugees anywhere are everybody's problem.

The only thing stopping the Malaysia "Deal" going ahead is the intransigence of the Libs, who are embarrassed that they didn't think of it first.

You reckon Nauru did the trick, as does Robert Manne. I have already set out an easing of 'push' factors as contributing to this.

We don't withdraw from the Refugee Convention - we get other nations in this region to sign up to it, and if this means it needs to be updated then so be it.

I'm not sure that you and I are in furious agreement about much at all, since most of the fury is on your part. To the extent that you agree with me, congratulations.

"We don't withdraw from the Refugee Convention - we get other nations in this region to sign up to it, and if this means it needs to be updated then so be it. "

How does that solve the problem of illegal immigration?

It would mean that Indonesia for example would become another soft target for illegal immigrants in the region. Indonesia would have even bigger problems with over population than it already does, both through its own excessive fertility and the massive increase in illegal immigrants.

No! The best solution, for both Australia and indonesia, is for Australia to withdraw from the UN refugee convention. Then there is little incentive for any illegal immigrants to travel through any of south east asia.

Mr Boyle, as I've stated elsewhere, our non-withdrawal from the Refugee Convention has nothing to do with "solving the problem" of illegal immigration; this is because the Refugee Convention is all about refugees - people fleeing intolerable, possibly lethal, conditions in their own nations.

If you want to stop people fleeing intolerable, possibly lethal, conditions in their own nations, you've got to get those nations to reform themselves. This is why it was wrong to invade Iraq before the Taliban were extirpated from the face of the earth.

The un refugee convention was conceived and implemented at a time when there was perhaps 2-3 billion humans on earth, relatively little poverty and wider economic hardship and in response to the very specific persecution of the Jews by the Nazis.

It is no longer economically, environmentally or socially sustainable to allow the mass migration of humans largely due to ECONOMIC hardship.

The problems of those suffering ECONOMIC hardship must now be solved through fertility control in the third world and consumption control in the west.

The UN refugee convention is no longer relevant in a world beset by anthropogenic climate change and worsening resource constraints.

By allowing an easy short term escape for over population we risk the contnuation of western civilisation. An easy escape in terms of the third world refusing to make some difficult decisions in reducing their fertility and in terms of people like you avoiding upsetting the third world by insisting on this and also in terms of you having to make some serious sacrifices to your lifestyle in order to reduce the need for third world economic migration. E.G. Sacrifice your air household conditioners and allow the extra electricity to be generated in the third world rather than the USA or where ever you live.

Mr Boyle, thanks for pointing out that the UN Refugee Convention was written in different times in different circumstances. Whereas you assert that this is reason enough for Australia to withdraw from the Convention, I would rather that the Convention be reviewed, re-written, and made more universal. ie more countries should sign up to it.

This is one the points I make elsewhere on this page, in discussion with Mr Frank Moore.

Regarding your concern with distinguishing between political refugees and economic migrants, the latter group is becoming increasingly indistinguishable from environmental refugees. This, of course, is another issue, that should be addressed when the Refugee Convention is re-written.

Regardless of definition of 'refugee', reviewing the UN convention and the merging of economic and environmental refugees, you are still refusing to acknowledge that relocating people en masse from unsustainably growing population centres for what ever reasons is niether environmentally, economically or socially sustainable.

It is a band aide solution that does not get to the heart of the problem - over population and excess fertility.

The UN review of the refugee act should rule that countries with unsustainably growing populations cannot dump their excess population in other regions of the world as economic, environmental or political refugees.

And that regions with stable or near stable populations cannot be obligated to accept refugees to the point of threatening their own social, political and environmental stability regardless of the suffering.

That would amount to a race to the bottom for our entire civilisation.

However I would be quite open to western countries, under the reviewed UN refugee convention, being obligated to proportionally increasing their foreign aid spending and reducing their domestic consumption if they are unable (or unwilling) to accept refugees of what ever type.

With third world over population the west is facing the same moral dilema that villages and familes faced when the Plague was ravaging Europe etc.

Do they show fleeing plague infected people compassion and allow them into our home or village and almost certainly codemn to the death everyone that is healthy. If so what exactly does this really gain for both the healthy and indeed the infected - the infected will die regardless of whether we show them compassion or not.

And what if everyone in the healthy wider society or civilisation did the same. What exactly does compassion to the point of extinction of the entire society or civilisation gain for the human species as a whole?

Compassion must be pragmatic and measured otherwise there is no point to it what so ever. Otherwise compassion is nothing more than a race to the bottom, a destructive force that serves no one in the long term.

If you motivation for unmeasured compassion towards refugees, both in terms of ganting asylum and not tackling the fertility crisis head on, is religious then that is your choice.

But you do not have the right to demand that the rest of your society similarly risk their long term survival, or more particularly that of future generations, for highly dubious if not non-existant long term gains for humanity as a whole.

I am referring to umeasured granting of asylum to refugees here that will threaten the future generations, in terms of political and economic instability in the west and also increasing total global consumption which is already grossly unsustainable.

I am not refering to reduction in consumption in the west, enforced if necessary, that will make possible economic improvement for third worlders without increasing total consumption and reduce the stimulus for mass immigration to the west.

Thanks Greg, you write: "Regardless of definition of 'refugee', reviewing the UN convention and the merging of economic and environmental refugees, you are still refusing to acknowledge ..." as though demanding that I concede that you are correct.

Greg, I have no idea whether you are correct or not,m and I don't care.

My point is that the system is broke, and needs fixing. This is evident from your expenditure of so much energy railing against that same system.

Can I suggest that the seemingly endless argument you are all having might be better informed if you read the ADA's comprehensive and balanced discussion paper on asylum and refugee issues at http://www.ada.asn.au/Comments/RefugeeConvention.htm

This paper sorts out most of the definitional issues bedevilling the Moore-Arthur-Boyles exchanges.

Neil James
Executive Director
Australia Defence Association
www.ada.asn.au

Please read below David. I think we can assume that there is a consensus within the scientific community that the world is grossly over populated, that consumption levels are grossly unsustainable and that a population crash is imminent.

As with the climate change issue, it is only the poorly science educated and adherents of psuedoscience that believe that there is room for further population growth or that consumption levels can be raised further to accomodate economic development in the third world

http://www.interacademies.net/cms/3059.aspx

"1993: Science Summit on World Population
In October 1993, representatives of the world's scientific academies met for the first time in New Delhi, India to address issues related to increases in world population. A statement published subsequently in 1994 focused on a range of crucial policy and programmatic concerns, including education, health, the status of women and availability of reproductive health services. It also urged support for new avenues of scientific research. The statement was forwarded to governments and international decision makers, including delegates to the 1994 UN International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo."

Greg, you'll have no disagreement from me about the world being overpopulated.

You will and do have disagreement from me about conflation of issues of overpopulation with humanitarian issues around refugees (for example, I am in favour of automatic right of asylum for Afghan females, because sooner or later the Salafists will run of breeding stock).

Thanks for this, Neil.

The discussion paper makes a point of, among other issues, general smuggling activities; to a smuggler, there's little difference between a cargo of humans, a cargo of narcotics or a cargo of weed and pest species.

Many of Greg Boyles's concerns could be addressed if Australia also introduces a system of breeding permits for its humans. After all, we already impose constraints on access to firearms.