1eyedtiger said:
Talk of population is pointless unless you're prepared to take the necessary steps to enforce it. Whatever you do to enforce it will be seen as draconian.
For the boat people, I really don't know. The problems in their own countries need to be resolved eventually. At the moment, the only way I can see of doing that is to get all the innocent civilians out of the middle east, wipe out every human remaining, then send the civilians back and help them rebuild, without all the religious fanatics and psychos. Bringing them into Australia by itself isn't fixing the underlying issues. You're putting a band aid on a body riddled with cancer.
Helping the people at source or even in the camps is one effective way of reducing movement of people looking for safety. So what is the Australian Governemnt reaction to that ? Oh yeah, lets cut 40% off the aid budget as well.
I know for a fact that these cuts have cut specific programs that have already started in refugee camps in the Middle East, in places like South Sudan and Somalia that were bringing sanitation, clean water and education to refugees, and whilst this is being cut we send $40 million to Cambodia to line the pockets of Hun Sen's cronies to resettle the grand total of 2 people so far... it's a sick joke.
This government doesn't give a rats toss bag for these people. They quote a largely non existent queue and where it is in existence it is somewhere between 100-200 years long. Over 50 million people are stateless or refugess, about 20% of them are considered eligible for resettlement to a 3rd country by UNHCR ( the rest are " temporary'" refugees like Syrians in places like Lebanon and turkey) and around 100,000 people are resettled each year.
If we are going to talk about stopping the boats on the basis of saving lives then take saving lives seriously. Support international aid efforts don't cut the guts out of them.
