Question: How much are you prepared to pay?

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. 

The Taxi Driver

I met a very interesting man on Friday. He is a taxi driver, but was previously a restauranteur. As it turns out I know the restaurant. He sold it to enable him to focus on his family, which will become clearer. 

My taxi driver is an Afghani by birth. He was eight years of age when he arrived in Australia.  He’s also a Muslim. He’s well educated and successful. It was obvious he came from a good family. He considers himself a ridgy didge Aussie. 

Like me, my taxi driver is an LNP supporter and like me he isn’t impressed with our ex PM Abbott or our current PM Turnbull. He will continue to support the LNP (with some reservations). We have that in common. As a legal immigrant he is very committed to keeping our borders safe. He worked for a period of time (during the Labor years)  as an interpreter on Christmas Island and in WA. This experience seemed to strengthen his support for stopping the boats. 

We talked at length about the ‘Afghanistan’ he remembered as a child. His family had wealth. His father ran an airline, but not long after the Russian invasion of 1979 they arrested his father and jailed him for three years. He was very critical of what was happening in his country. His father was just one of thousands rounded up and jailed. Upon the release of his father, the family applied for asylum. They were accepted by Australia. They had to leave everything behind to make a new life where they could be safe from persecution and war. 

My taxi driver worked hard, studied and made a successful life for himself in the country he loves, Australia. He married and has children, the eldest a son. As a father, he’s worried about his son and radicalisation. He said he feels like a spy constantly on the alert for any signs that his son is being influenced by radicals. He shared his fears that despite the efforts made by himself and his wife, his son may still be ensnared in the web of radicalisation. The thought of this happening understandably fills him with horror. 

The family isn’t overly religious. But he explained that he spends a lot of time trying to educate his son on how radicals use the Koran to manipulate the gullible. Like so many others who use religious text in an attempt to frame an argument radicals don’t provide the context. My taxi driver tries to do that. He believes he is winning, but admits it's a constant battle between parents and the lure of master manipulators. 

His story reminded me of the struggle one of my family members had with their heroin addicted son. Their constant vigil. The guilt they felt in searching his room. Reading his emails, etc. Despite their efforts, their son still managed to obtain drugs. This went on for years. It almost destroyed the family and the scars still remain. Nothing changed until the son decided he had to get off drugs. Thankfully he eventually did break his habit and he is now leading a productive life. 

It also reminded me of Hitler and how he was able to manipulate millions of people. He was charismatic, and he found the lure to suck in people. The reasons why people followed Hitler were many and varied.  From all I’ve read about the subject it's the same with ISIS followers. Some are certainly disenfranchised, others are idealistic (creating their own state). Peer pressure plays a role. Ignorance I suspect is up there. Just plain gullible perhaps. It's reasonable to assume there is a good smattering of just plain evil amongst the recruits. But many come from good families and that's the biggest challenge. Thousands who followed Hitler didn’t believe what they heard about his atrocities. You hear much the same from radicalised youth about ISIS. 

I guess the message for me was. Unless you have been in the situation of managing what this man is trying to deal with, we really can’t appreciate just how hard it is. There are parents who are prepared to give up a lot in their efforts to protect their children. That includes Muslim parents. My taxi driver certainly has. I hope he and his wife are successful in keeping their son on the ‘straight and narrow’. He told me he isn’t the only one in their circle of friends trying to protect their children from the evils of radicalisation. Who would be in their shoes. It's must be simply awful. 

They do say “Sometimes people comes to your life for a moment. It matters not how much time they spent with you but how they impacted your life in that time.” True. My taxi driver was one such person. I learnt something important from him. That is, don’t be so quick to judge. We never know what others a trying to deal with. 

I'm A Conservative

Two of the hottest topics currently are asylum seekers; in particular Muslim asylum seekers and the Paris Climate meeting. I guess for us conservatives, this debate is heightened because of the change in government leader. 

In the past, we appeared to have a clear divide between Labor, Greens and conservatives on both of those issues. But I wonder if it really was that clear cut. If you are pro you must be on the left. If you are against, you must be on the right. 

I’m a conservative. I support the Liberal Party, have done for years, but that doesn’t mean I’m devoid of compassion for other people or the environment. I can see the merits of controlling pollution. You only have to look at countries like China to see the disastrous impact of millions of cars on the road and their air quality problems. Companies pumping chemicals into waterways wreck havoc on wildlife. I am deeply concerned about deforestation and the impact on the environment; land degradation, plants and animals and air quality.  

I believe as a society we should do all we can to protect the collective environment. Doesn’t mean, however, I buy the myth of global warming or support the exploitation of developed countries as a cash cow to prop up failed governments, the UN or IMF.  I certainly don’t support closing coal fired power stations, but I do think developing technology to deliver cleaner fossil fuel production is a good idea. I detest blights on the landscape and seascape in the form of wind turbines; costly, ugly, killing fields and depending on where they are they can be grossly inefficient. Large scale solar farms are equally reviled. I do like the idea of solar panels with battery power storage, thus taking homes off grid; brilliant idea. I’m also a huge fan of hydropower. 

The question of asylum seekers is a vexing one. I am pleased the LNP had the fortitude to stop the boats and to deal effectively with the odd one or two who have attempted to land here since early 2014. But I also don’t support closing the front doors to some who are in desperate need of a safe haven. Hence, I supported ex Prime Minister Abbott when he announced we would be taking an additional 12,000 persecuted minority Syrians from refugee camps. Prime Minister Turnbull has supported that decision as expected. 

I find it fascinating that people on social media cheer on Kurds fighting ISIS and rebels in Iraq and Syria, but scream NO to relocating some of the Kurdish men, women and children here. I trust our intelligence and immigration people will do their jobs selecting who comes here. Let's face it, we don’t have to import terrorist. We only have to give lunatics access to the Internet to learn all they need to know to cause a problem here. We aren’t Europe. We are an island we control who comes here. I simply can’t support closing everything up and erecting the No Room At The Inn sign. 

So yes, I’m a conservative. It doesn’t mean I should have to say no to every initiative to improve the environment. It doesn’t mean I should have to support a closed door asylum policy. Because I do support some of those initiatives and share those opinions doesn’t mean I’m a closet Leftie. It simply means I’m a middle of the road conservative and proud of it. 

It Was the Best of Times, Let's Pray It Isn't the WORST

In Charles Dickens novel, A Tale of Two Cities, he wrote,

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way- in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only." 

As we sit and observe from afar, what is happening in the middle east, Nigeria, Zambia, Horn of Africa, Libya, Burma, Afghanistan (so many places in the world) it's hard not to feel for those who are suffering through the very worst of times, their season of darkness.  What is really sobering at times like this, is just how many people simply don't care.  And even worse than that, are those who seek to cash in on the despair of others and seek opportunistic glory for themselves.

I can understand why people feel anger when they see what obviously appears to be economic immigrants queue jumping to get into Europe. The overwhelming number of young men in particular is worrying. It raises a number of questions. Why so many? Are the reports of women and children being thrown overboard from overcrowded boats true? It does make me suspicious that perhaps there is some truth to that. Is the story (attributed to an ISIS operative in Turkey) that ISIS is going to flood Europe with sympathisers true? 

Many are asking the same questions. So the combination of images of well feed, smartly dressed immigrants, coupled with serious questions, make people angry, suspicious and not so willing to offer compassion and help. As a result,  what happens is the real refugees who are in desperate need, fleeing for their lives, are often lost in the crowd and they are branded along with everyone else. People living in overcrowded camps in places like Lebanon, Syria, Egypt etc. are forgotten.

Whilst I know many are unhappy with what they see as a backdown by our government in taking a one off additional 12,000 Syrian asylum seekers, I'm not. I am so pleased we are taking people who have been proven to be genuinely persecuted and who are living in camps in the Middle East. The UK is doing the same. That is to be commended. 

What really sickens me, are the two bit, so called celebrities who are coming out now and offering rooms in their houses to immigrants flooding into Europe. What a bunch of self-serving opportunists, these people are. Millions of people have been languishing in camps for years. But not a word from this glory seeking bunch. But now of course, the world is focused on Europe, so they are very quick, to capitalise on this. They are as bad as those who used the picture of a little dead child to promote their cause. The same lot who said nothing about the children who died a horrific death in the back of a locked and abandoned smuggler's truck in Austria only the week before. Frankly, they disgust me. The lot of them. Sorry. I just needed to say that. 

I hope when people start arriving here around Christmas time we will accept them knowing we have done something good for those genuinely in need. Not those who have the money to pay smugglers to queue jump and country shop.  Let’s pray that in taking the action they have, that Europe isn’t foolishly opening itself up to their future ‘worst of times’ as a result of a social experiment in throwing the doors to the kingdom open.