Your offensive tosh is not worthy of the space allocated to it.

Mungo has again demonstrated clear analytic skills and has courageously proceeded to put his name to a piece which is worthy of consideration and debate, for debate must lie at the root of policy development.

Both major parties in Australia need to develop real policies and place them before the electorate, rather than fighting over a slimmer and slimmer slice of the common ground which lies between their unstated and ill-defined policy platforms.

If they do not, then prepare for further voter affection for the Greens and for single issue parties.

Regarding two child families and baby bonuses - the former has been shown to happen automatically within advanced societies with good social support systems in place and the latter is simply pork barrelling and is in no way relevant to a considered discussion of population policy, except as an impediment to rational behaviour.

Also like most Australians it is unacceptable to me that persons who can afford to pay people smugglers end up getting entry preference over those who haves been waiting for years in refugee camps all over the world. Claims by commentators such as yourself that there are no ques are disengenuous.

We’ve golden soil and wealth for toil,
Our home is girt by sea; …

For those who’ve come across the seas
We’ve boundless plains to share; …

Sounds welcoming, doesn’t it? But the truth lies in the following unsung verses:

From England, Scotia, Erin’s Isle,
Who come our lot to share,
Let all combine with heart and hand
To advance Australia fair! …

Shou’d foreign foe e’er sight our coast,
Or dare a foot to land,
We’ll rouse to arms like sires of yore
To guard our native strand;
Brittannia then shall surely know,
Beyond wide ocean’s roll,
Her sons in fair Australia’s land
Still keep a British soul.

Venise Alstergen
Refugees ARE part of our immigration program. What makes them different to other migrants is political points scoring of some of our politicians.
We have plenty of water but a huge mismanagement of the resources. Perhaps refugees would help us with the solution. After all they had already helped us with the Snowy Mountain Scheme.
Crowded trains and two hour traffic jams in a 20 million population of a vast country is already nothing short of a sick joke. We need people to build the infrastructure Australian people have neglected for so many years and were unable and unwilling to do anything about it. We pay taxes for our roads and just wondering where is it going? We pay huge water bills. Where is the money going?
WE definitely have too much room for ugly parking spots and car parks. No wonder there is no room for people.

And baby bonuses have absolutely nothing to do with refugees.

Perhaps all our political leaders can cease paying baby bonuses and start invoking a two child only limit on all breeding couples.

Or do you enjoy the nightmare of crowded trains or two hour traffic jams?

In the circumstances, the least I could do was to fully support the acceptance by Australia of as many Vietnamese who sought refuge from the victorious North Vietnamese communists. I know that millions of Vietnamese fled their homeland the first real impact starting early in 1976. I understand that Australia took around 200,000 South Vietnamese and a much lesser number of Cambodians. Australia in 1976 was economically and structurally much less sophisticated than it is in 2009.

I find it difficult to comprehend how we can accept, currently, around 150,000 migrants annually and in that number only provide for around 13,000 refugees. Our country is wealthy enough, sophisticated enough and smart enough, to accept tens of thousands of refugees almost immediately and substantially increase the annual intake of refugees on an ongoing basis.

For the purposes of discussion, and I have had this discussion with my children, I propose that Australia’s refugee policy needs to be varied. In the next 12 months, to November 2010, we take 200,000 refugees - seeking to bring in where possible those who have been in camps for longer periods than others. In the 13 months from December 2010 we bring in 50,000 a year and do this annually until 2015 when we review and again vary with the plan being to increase the annual number to 75,000.

Of course this will change the social fabric of Australia - just as post WW2 the Italians and Greeks changed Australia for the better, as in the late 1970s and 1980s the Vietnamese added lustre to our society - and indeed as the Chinese flooding our cities have done - I live in Maxine McKew’s electorate, Bennelong. One only has to visit the shopping centre of Eastwood to witness the dramatic, positive and all encompassing impact Chinese immigration has made to a member of the north western suburban Bible Belt of Sydney.

And anyway, my ethnic background is Irish. My great… parents on dad’s side came to an Australia on an assisted passage in 1841. On mum’s side, again an assisted passage, in 1842. So no convict blood on my side just lots of help.

Open the doors, quickly.