Hurrah!

I don't have anything particularly insightful or sophisticated to say about the results of Australia's election. I just want to celebrate John Howard's defeat.

What fantastic news!

Let's hope Labor delivers a fairer and more humane immigration policy that restores Australia's tattered reputation and heals the wounds to the country's vibrant multicultural society.

Letting in unskilled workers is not 'un-Australian'

Australia's Herald Sun reports that:

A British migration expert said yesterday Australia should open its borders to unskilled rather than skilled Asian migrants to do the dirty, difficult and dangerous jobs locals shunned.

Philippe Legrain, a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics' European Institute, also accused the Government of racism over its approach to African refugees.

"I think it's the most crude, electioneering racism," he said.

A spokeswoman for Mr Andrews said opening the borders to unskilled migrants would be catastrophic.

"The idea of bringing in people to do low-skilled, low-paid jobs is, frankly, un-Australian," she said.

Rubbish. Indeed, some people might say that the Howard government's policy towards refugees'  is not only un-Australian; it's unethical and inhumane.

On migration in Melbourne

I am currently in Melbourne, attending and speaking at the 12th international Metropolis conference on migration. Yesterday I spoke about migration and the global economy, and tomorrow I'll be speaking on the benefits of diversity.

Melbourne's leading newspaper, The Age, published a leader yesterday praising my contribution:

Immigration is not as simple as its critics make out: the these-foreigners-who-come-in-and-take-our-jobs argument has long been discredited in favour of a more optimistic reality. Another delegate, Philippe Legrain, visiting fellow at the London School of Economics European Institute, says that foreigners create jobs, too, as well as creating future generations of talent just as deserving of opportunity and success as other Australian children. Mr Legrain makes a valuable contribution in criticising Australia's much-copied points system for vetting immigrants as "wrong-headed … government officials picking winners", and too narrow to embrace diversity or changes to the nature of immigration. The phrase "international mobility" — whereby people, encouraged by economic opportunities and less strict entry requirements, can move freely between various countries — is indicative of a new progressiveness rather than permanency. Sadly, it seems that it will be a while before Australia adopts such a progressive attitude. Eleven-and-a-half years of conservative government have tightened, not loosened, the wire on the fence, and the small-minded and prejudicial parts of society continue to act accordingly.

Life Matters

I was a guest on ABC Radio National's Life Matters on 5 July, talking about opening borders. I was severely jetlagged, but hopefully not completely incoherent. Listen to it here

The Elephant and the Dragon

I'm just back from the Adelaide Festival of Ideas, which was great. The 24-hour flight and 8 1/2-hour time difference are still killers though. I participated in a discussion about the future of India and China on my first evening at the festival, which was rebroadcast on ABC's programme The National Interest. I also gave a talk about my book, and participated in a panel discussion called People without Borders.

Apart from jetlag, one reason I haven't updated my blog for a while is that the Adelaide Hilton, where the Festival were very kindly putting me up, charges an outrageously expensive $25 for 2 hours' wireless internet access. So my internet time was tightly rationed, which was really tough for an internet junkie like me.

Adelaide Festival of Ideas

I'm delighted to be speaking at the Adelaide Festival of Ideas next week. I'm talking at three events on Thursday 5 July and Friday 6 July. For more details, see the schedule. I'm also due to be interviewed on ABC Radio National's Life Matters show on Thursday 5 at 8:45am Adelaide time, or 9:15am Sydney time. I'm really looking forward to it.

Interviewed by Margaret Throsby

When I was last in Australia in February, I appeared on ABC's Mornings with Margaret Throsby, a radio interview show interspersed with my favourite pieces of classical music. I just found the recording today, so I'm putting it up now. It's a much more relaxed and broad-ranging interview than most. Listen to it here

Human cargo

Australia's treatment of asylum seekers has long been shockingly inhumane. But prime minister John Howard's latest policy twist is truly despicable: he plans to "swap" would-be refugees held in the country's illegal offshore detention centres with Cuban and Haitian detainees the US is holding in Guantanamo Bay. People are to be treated as chattel, shipped off half-way across the world at the whim of a desperately unpopular politician who will seemingly go to any lengths to bolster his chances of re-election later this year. The first asylum seekers to be exchanged are likely to be the 83 Sri Lankans and eight Burmese held on the Pacific island of Nauru, according to the BBC.

Howard's rationale is simple: treat 'em mean and hope they'll be less keen to try to come to Australia in the first place. No matter that people fleeing persecution have already suffered enough in their home country; no matter that the UN's refugee convention, which the Australian government has signed up to, legally commits Australia (and other signatories) to give refuge to those fearing for their lives at home; deterring people who dare - how presumptuous of them! - to cross the world in search of a better life from heading Down Under is everything.

Each element of this policy is abhorrent. Even if one presumes, as Howard does, that some (or even most) of the people detained on Nauru do not have legitimate claims for asylum, how can it be right to treat them all - including those, such as torture victims, who are genuine refugees - inhumanely? Even people with disfiguring scars elicit scepticism rather than sympathy from hard-hearted immigration officials - after all, they reason, the wounds might be self-inflicted.

In truth, of course, one cannot neatly distinguish refugees from "economic migrants" - most people move for a variety of motives - any more than the Victorians could separate the "deserving" and "undeserving" poor. And in any case, given that there is no other legal route for most people from poor countries to go work in Australia, is pretending to be a refugee really such an ignoble crime that it warrants ever more elaborate mistreatment by the Australian government? Immigrants from Sri Lanka or Burma are not an invading army; they are mostly people seeking a better life for themselves and their family, just like the millions of Britons who have moved to Australia in recent decades.

One might have hoped that the opposition Labor Party would take Howard to task for this. Unfortunately not. Immigration spokesman Tony Burke's criticism was instead that the new policy would attract, rather than deter, boat people. "If you are in one of the refugee camps around the world, there is no more attractive destination than to think you can get a ticket to the USA," he said. "What John Howard is doing is saying to the people around the world: if you want to get to the US, the way to it is to hop on a boat and go to [Australia's] Christmas Island."

Perhaps feeding people to the sharks would be a more effective deterrent.

Migrant nation

View the pdf here

Open up to migrants

View the pdf here

Living without borders

Bron Sibree wrote an article about Immigrants in the Brisbane Courier Mail on 17 February. Read it here

Review of Immigrants in The Australian

Roy Williams, a Sydney-based lawyer and writer, has reviewed Immigrants in today's edition of The Australian.

He says:

Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them is not merely a demonstration of the beneficial effects of immigration to date, it is also an earnest plea for a more liberal policy of open borders throughout the world.

Australian book tour

I am delighted to be off on a book tour of Australia for the next two weeks. As well as doing a large number of press and radio interviews, I shall be speaking at the following events:

Friday 23 February, PERTH
7pm The Bill Warnock Memorial Address, Perth Arts Festival
Winthrop Hall, University of Western Australia
Click here for more info

Sunday 25 February, PERTH
11:30am Has multiculturalism failed? Discussion with Carmen Lawrence, Rod Barton and John Hirst
Wardle Room, Perth Concert Hall

2:30pm Future city. Discussion with Charles Landry, John Coleman and Kate Crawford
Wardle Room, Perth Concert Hall

Monday 26 February, SYDNEY
6:30pm "Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them"
Leichhardt Library, Piazza Level, 23 Norton St, Leichhardt
Click here for more info

Tuesday 27 February, SYDNEY
6:30pm "Globalisation and why your country needs immigrants"
Sydney Ideas lecture at the University of Sydney
Seymour Theatre Centre
Click here for more info

Wednesday 28 February, BRISBANE
6:30pm "Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them"
Avid Reader and the Brisbane Institute Evening Talk
Avid Reader bookshop, 193 Boundary St, West End
Click here for more info

Thursday 1 March, MELBOURNE
6:30pm "Immigrants: Why the world needs them"
Dean's Lecture at the University of Melbourne
Copland Theatre, Economics & Commerce Building, Parkville Campus 
Click here for more info