Question: How much are you prepared to let the government spend for changes to our refugee intake policy. I have assumed (possibly dangerous) you don't want to see our debt position worsen as a result of the proposed Labor & Greens increases. What are you prepared to give up byway of benefits? Or conversely, what are you prepared to contribute byway of increased taxes and charges to pay for it?
Remember this proposal isn't general immigration. This is for increases to the humanitarian refugee intake. This will means people from third world countries; predominately war torn.
The LNP have committed and budgeted to spend $700million to cover the cost of the increase of 12,000 one off uplift. This is besides our current intake of 13,750; this increases to 18,750 by 2018 - 2019.
Labor's proposal is an annual increase to 27,000 at a cost of $2.7billion over four years.
If we adopted the Greens proposal of a staggering 50,000 annually the cost would be $7billion over the same period. To put this into perspective. That equates to housing a city approximately the size of Wagga Wagga every year. That doesn't even touch on the special needs of those people.
It's easy when it's someone else's money conjured up by the mysterious government money fairy from the pot at the end of the rainbow. But it's yours and mine. We pay.
So, it's a simple cost based question. What are you prepared to pay in increased taxes and how much are you prepared to give up byway of current benefits? Or, are you simply prepared to see the country go into more and debt leaving the legacy for future generations to deal with?
A couple of comments on the Peter Dutton issue. A lot of people condemned him for what he said. Completely ignoring the fact that he was talking about the likely profile of our humanitarian intake today. Not the profile 50-40-30, even 20 years ago. In many cases a profile very different in both their religious and social maturity than those who came here following the Second World War. Whilst our country has developed, grown and matured economically and socially, the same can't be said for all countries. Particularly those where the bulk of humanitarian and boat people have come from. You may not like what he said and, many called him unAustralian. If anyone's acting in an 'unAustralian' manner it's the people attacking him. We have to be mature enough to debate thorny issues no matter how unsavoury and confronting the facts are. If we can’t then we forego the right to call, ourselves a mature and intelligent society.
Research commission and published by the then Labor government back in 2011 confirms what Mr Dutton said. Although I'm not sure I totally agree with his comment about taking Australian jobs. As the jobs taken by people who come into the country are often those shunned by locals. The facts with respect to literacy, welfare and employment prove what he said is right. No amount of bullying or slurring Peter Dutton or those who defend him will change that.
