Asylum Seekers.

two things no one gives a shit about

1. the people who taking legal means to seek asylum who dont have thousands of dollars to pay criminals to illegally enter Australia. They stuck in Indonesia in less than ideal conditions, not a single aussie is batting for them. They have no means and no way.

2. The environment. People here saying that we need to expand our population either know absolutely nothing about the environment or dont care as long as they can be "pure vegans".
And the others sound like socialist dictators.

Land that "is not being used" is the most disgusting concept of all. What it is really saying is that we should destroy and exploit all "unused" land.

I support a small CONTROLLED number of refugees. possibly 200 a year on top of about 200 immigrants. If our conditions improve in the future we could increase that number.

To put it into another context, would you people like to see Fiji destroyed? Their culture and way of life destroyed? Hey, they have heaps of room why should they be so selfish, we could build thousands of flats, create better transport systems. Hopefully those racist Fijians will be bred out of existence.
This is basically the socialist agenda expect only targeted at European nations.
And for the record, yes, Fiji is being destroyed.

Aaron, our population is ageing, which is one of the reasons why we need immigration to maintain a sustainable demographic, to keep people in employment and to produce food, provide health care, education and other goods & services we need as a nation to survive - the average age of Australians would rise to about 65 in quick time if we only accepted 400 migrants a year, and we would have almost zero doctors and nurses to look after us.

We can have a sensible debate about where net immigration should be, between 100,000 - 300,000. The demographers who have done stacks of research on this reckon that 170,000 is about the figure we should aim for to make sure there are enough people of working age in this country to support our retired parents and grandparents. Are you going to send them back out to work? Otherwise, you're welcome to pay for all their pensions by yourself... I'd be taking my friends and moving to New Zealand.

And on your first point, showing compassion for refugees who arrive in Australia doesn't mean we care any less about those who are in other countries. Incidentally, the refugees sitting around in Malaysia and Indonesia are "illegal" too, by your own definition.

So what will happen when people start ditching their cars and trying to take public transport to work? They'll get even more crowded than they already are.

You run more buses, trains, trams etc.
More demand more public transport.
Simple.

@ Aaron it is called building up not out! Australia can take on a lot more people, not loads but it's Australias right to take in more immigrants because we can.
Have you put foreign countries environments into your mind when thinking about this? So many European and Asian coutries are digging more and more into their environment to pack in more people.

It's cool how the biggest threads are all to do with human issues (Religion, Refugees etc).

I guess it's because we all agree on animal issues mostly.

Hm, debates are fun.

I bet if we took some parts of one side of the argument and blended it with some parts of the other side, we would get the best solution, because there is some ridiculously good logic in both sides.

more like to provide cheap ethnic labor for greedy corporations at the expense of aussie kids who cant compete with foreigners who are prepared to work for a pittance and never take holidays.
Globalization is the evil that caused this, as a result white western/european people have stopped breeding in order to maintain a way a life that we have come accustomed to, taking up two jobs, renting and huge loans. And things only continue to get worse.
We need only to look to other countries to see the trouble caused by short term boosts to the economy. Immigration is not easing the burden on anyone.

You're getting your wish, we are getting thousands of immigrants. You might be happy to know that the mornington peninsula is about to be destroyed to expand cheap housing which is dependent on huge highways, meaning more cars, more pollution, more congestion.

All I ever hear about is boat people and how terrible their countries are with not a single mention of the exact same people who now have to wait even longer because they dont have to cash  to buy a boat ride. They are voiceless and ignored.
They are not illegal when they finally come to Australia because they have been legally processed.

it's called living like rats.

I know, it's awesome. I WAS participating before, but both sides have raised such sound arguments that I can no longer decide where I stand.

For now, i'm going to just sit back and listen. You know, if we sat here and riddled out all of these little issues until we came to a single solution, this forum could solve all the world's problems. We're quite an intelligent, rational bunch.

I'm defiently not to keen on taking public transport where everyone else leans their heads on the seat, has s*it on their shoes or probaly pick their nose and wipes it in places.
If we're going to have more people in this country, personally I'd rather it to be the English/Britiish or so because they basically settled this country. Besides, us, as Aussies, I mean the ones that have been here for a few generations are getting over-run by the foreigners. The Aussies are becoming a minority group in this country and the government isn't doing barely enough.