Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

I believe it is greed that is a root cause of climate change denial. The people who deny the threat of global warming are the same people who are unwilling to change their way of life so that others in the village can survive. People who want it all now and are unwilling to leave anything for generations to come.

Sadly for our politicians and media we do have a nation run on the rule of law, therefore appeals to the highest court are legal and binding and it would be hard to see how our High Court would consider it legal to break the law the High Court handed down in November last year that says the law applies to all in our territory and natural justice applies even to those we jail on Christmas Island.

This is what Chris Bowen said in 2006. What a contrast to the ALP Government's current behaviour.

A prominent Cairns businessman is spearheading a push to bring thousands of Japanese refugees left homeless by the earthquake and tsunami to the Far North to ease the pressure on the disaster-struck nation.

No-one is to blame unless we start with the mullahs in Iran who are cracking down on dissidents and Christians and the murderous thugs in Iraq and work our way down to Australia having them jailed in Indonesia and not allowing them safe passage to this country under the law.

Is it possible to have prosperity that isn’t about rising income? A prosperity that would give us health and security, at the same time allowing us to participate socially with hope for the future – a life that gives us the ability to flourish as human beings on a finite planet?... We are social beings, not isolates. To be complete we need to free our imagination: our prosperity should be about caring for others – a prosperity of hope.

People start to talk of "othering" - it's an ugly proposition to contemplate in this actuality, if you ask if we Australians are virtually "taking hostages", as some have put it, to our own uncertainties for our own futures?

Which brings us to a separate issue, yet one with tentative connections to the one mentioned above – the spectacular dumping of the contentious Traveston mega-dam in south east Queensland, which represents a belated day in the sun for the long-maligned Peter Garrett and more eclipse for Labor's cover-girl of such a short time ago, Anna Bligh.

Go on Kev mate, show us your inner (real) man (you know, like Malcolm Fraser); be courageous (nope, don't drop your daks) and speak the truth to Australians. You do have the numbers to support the fact that overwhelmingly these poor refugees are just that – poor pathetic souls who have sacrificed everything and risked their lives for a safe and secure future for their children.

Since a large number of immigrants, both white and coloured, have re-shaped this nation for the better, will they now be permitted to contribute to the identification of a revised package of national icons? Carefully selected and evaluated, a palimpsest of a national iconology might be achieved, where nothing significant of the past is obliterated.

The charging of people who arrive on our shores seeking protection the costs of their detention is part of the way in which we have demonised them and presented them as being worse than criminals. And this image, I believe, underpins the abuses which have been discovered by inquiries into our mistreatment of people in detention. (Petro Georgiou)

Who are you? Where did you come from? What experiences have you brought to this country? What are you doing? How are you being treated by the Aussies? This was before we ‘wogs’ and ‘blackfellows’ became Aussies ourselves. That is what we talked about.

This editorial was in response to Media Watch, the Press Council, myself and several others whom the Australian's editor chose to attack because his paper refused to stop using the word “illegal” in response to refugees arriving to seek asylum. The court citations are of course the genuine interpretations of our own parliament’s laws and are not “reems [sic] of drivel”, as they would have known if they bothered to accede to my request to read the truth.

It is a great testimony to the host people, by now not wholly Anglo-Australian, that the vast variety of new cultures entering the country adapted to one another, and to the host culture, peacefully. And that is because most, if not all, immigrants do want to “adapt” to the institutions and social mores of their chosen new home. Governments are not needed to “manage” ethno-cultural diversity.

Although Australia’s borders need to be secure and protected, efforts to deal with people smugglers who prey on refugees trying to make it to Australia must be intensified. Genuine asylum seekers should be wholeheartedly welcomed to Australia regardless of how they arrive, in accordance with this country’s United Nations obligations.

Australia needs to stop fear mongering and reach a cohesive, long lasting solution to a permanent problem. Boat people are not the poster children for what is wrong with immigration policy. They are just the tip of the iceberg.

The term 'illegal asylum seekers' is an oxymoron. According to the Migration Act, there is only a distinction between 'lawful non-citizens'(with visa) and 'unlawful non-citizens'(without visa). Unlawful doesn't mean illegal, as it is not a crime to arrive in Australia without a visa, whether by boat, air, parachute, spaceship, or catapult.

Earlier this year, as you might recall, the Federal government cut its skilled migration program by 14% in response to worsening economic conditions. Many people worried about Australia’s unemployment supported the decision - but they may not realise the number of working holiday visas is rising rapidly instead.

As the political debate heats up on who is to blame for the increase in the number of Afghan refugees, Malcolm “Returnbill” is pointing his finger at the “softening” by the Rudd government of Australia’s immigration policy. The reality – as the Human Rights Unit of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan points out in a new report – is that the increasing civilian death toll in Afghanistan (and other places) is more likely to be the cause of the increase in refugee numbers than changes to Australia's immigration laws.

As to Hanson herself, you have to wonder at the cultural background that created the woman she was: women’s upbringing and enculturisation (and men’s), gender relations, and politics in general over the last couple of centuries and post ww2 in particular, perhaps against a sort of back drop of the sort of stuff that Prof Marilyn Lake discussed, concerning the Henry Lawson Bronzed Anzac / Pioneer myth and its sidelining of women...

In The Next 100 Years, George Friedman offers a lucid, highly readable forecast of the changes we can expect around the world during the twenty-first century. He explains where and why future wars will erupt (and how they will be fought), which nations will gain and lose economic and political power, and how new technologies and cultural trends will alter the way we live in the new century. (Black Inc Publishing)

The Australian Human Rights Commission says asylum seekers are still being treated like political footballs and enduring "miserable" conditions at some immigration detention centres...The Government says conditions are improving and it is committed to a set of immigration values. But the Human Rights Commissioner, Graeme Innes, has told Naomi Woodley in Canberra that he's still waiting to see if those values translate into actual changes. (Brendan Trembath, Radio National's AM)

One of the favourite statements made by the [former] Minister is that “people in detention can go home anytime they choose to co-operate with Australian authorities”. But the cases of Akram al Masri and three other Palestinians gave us an excellent opportunity to claim release on a writ of habeas corpus due to the inability of the Minister to have other countries co-operate with his plans.

Malthus was wrong as demographers well know. It’s well known that the projections Malthus made of the English population failed to unfold, and the steep upward curve of population plateaued and now actually creeps downward, not just in England but in many parts of the World.  We know perfectly well what the key factor is in causing that plateau, and it’s not affluence as such, it’s not telling the Catholics to shut up (Ireland and Italy have among the lowest fertility rates in the World), it’s not giving out free condoms and abortions, it’s not an authoritarian imposition of small families, and it has nothing to do with immigration. It’s teaching women to read.

There was another milestone this week – the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass,” so known because of the shattered glass from the windows of Jewish homes and businesses, when murderous riots were orchestrated in nearly every town and village in Germany where Jews could be found.

As an international student, it’s time for me to make a decision as to whether I should stay in Australia or go back to China. International students who study full time for two years can apply for Skilled Migration, but ... although I enjoy my life here, however, I am still struggling because I miss my parents so much and I really want to go back.

A motion calling for a judicial inquiry into the Commonwealth Government's People Smuggling Strike Team's actions, including those concerning the boat known as SIEV X and its tragic loss of life, has been voted down by the Senate.

In Australia, there are three key arenas in which the limits of racial, cultural, ethnic and religious diversity are tested. The first is in the relationship between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. The second is at our borders as defined by our immigration policies. The third is in the policies directed at managing cultural and ethnic diversity in Australia. (Petro Georgiou MP)

Not since World War II has any boat, no matter how small, arrived on our shores, with the intent to have its passengers clandestinely settle in our country and disappear into the community. It's time Minister Evans stops acting like John Howard, and it's time he stops uttering the nonsense lines of the widely reviled former Immigration Minister Phillip Ruddock.

As more and more international student are coming to Australia, education has become a big export industry. However, some social issues concerned with overseas students are becoming stubborn.