I argued that the Libz policy of allowing unlimited refugees as long as they have a private ongoing sponsor is reasonable. I might be persuaded to change my mind about limitations but not the idea of sponsorship. Private sponsorship would probably have a self-limiting effect anyway.
In NZ, the particular problem with refugees is they are dependent on the public purse from the outset and frequently remain that way. This does not assist integration. It means refugees remain out of the workforce with no demands on them to learn English and new skills, if they choose not to.
There is a paper entitled Does a rising tide lift all boats? which examines how the US compares to NZ in its refugee resettlement programme. It is not written by a New Zealand public policy wonk which is immediately obvious in its clarity of structure and straightforward writing.
The result?
The paper goes on to point out that the refugees characteristics on arrival appear to be fairly similar, "and certainly not disparate enough to be the basis for marked difference in the outcomes."
The passage encapsulates what is wrong with the social compact New Zealanders apparently have with their government (though I do not believe for a moment it is a compact by consensus). Is a refugee stuck on a benefit more equal? Is she more free?
And exactly the same can be said about New Zealanders.
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Given this reasoning, doesn't this make the definition of "sponsorship" essential, as per the libz policy which appeared to suggest that immigrants would never(?) be entitled to welfare in any shape or form?
How realistic and practical is such a policy, who would enforce it, how quickly would it be eroded for votes, what would be the effect on the "sponsors", to name but a few details that would rapidly create a byzantine system of regulation, that doesn't even begin to address the real issue, the integrity of the receiving culture.
We have more than enough problems as it is, no need to burden the system with this additional ballast. Let's get the ship floating and moving again, and cross the immigration/multiculti bridge at a more opportune moment.
At this time it's a distraction, and it is incomprehensible that the libz start the election year with that issue, which relegates them to obscurity before the election proper has even started.
NB, I think you are correct that much of the argument at KG and TB focused on muslim immigration, rather than immigration per se.
Bez
By the way, I think your reference to collectivism is a bit of a straw man argument, albeit that it may be precipitated on the conclusion that the debate did focus on the muslim issue rather than immigration generally. I don't quit get how the refugee comment you make fits in to it. (Perhaps because 'refugees' tend to be muslims? Is that so, and are refugees almost by definition incapable of 'sponsoring' in any economic sense?)
Bez
I am not a Libz member. Were they kicking off election year with this policy? I didn't see anything on CR to that effect. There was no link.
Comment about collectivising refugees referred to the tarring of them all with the same brush - Muslim or not. There will surely be some who are better motivated than others.
My own view is that refugees should be entitled to some short-term assistance - not open-ended. But that won't happen until short-term assistance for ALL people capable of working is the norm. As long as NZ has a quota it should be aiming for a refugee employment rate achieved by those who enter the US.
I don't know whether this was some formal libz announcement or not, am not a member either.
I agree one shouldn't tar all members of an otherwise heterogeneous group with one brush, but that doesn't distract from the fact that your calling that activity "collectivist" and then going on to say that you prefer individualism is a straw argument, especially when next agreeing to the possibility that islam itself may well be a collectivist doctrine.
Essentially I think that you fail to see (or have a problem accepting) that one must draw a line between muslims as people and islam as a dangerous doctrine, in other words, as long as individuals wish to adhere to this doctrine they cannot be dealt with as individuals in the first place. Put differently, the question whether there are, in fact, radical islamists, or whether radicalism is a natural progression from the core doctrine of that philosophical system as it is practiced at the moment.
On top of that, I keep having a problem understanding you use of the terms refugees and immigrants.
Bez
NZ needs to reform its culture first. Individualism is something kiwis don't understand and freedom is something they're unprepared for.
Islam as a dangerous doctrine
no different than the other religious doctrines.
" ...one must draw a line between muslims as people and islam as a dangerous doctrine, in other words, as long as individuals wish to adhere to this doctrine they cannot be dealt with as individuals in the first place."
Quite. And it can't be assumed all refugees do wish to adhere to the doctrine.
"On top of that, I keep having a problem understanding you use of the terms refugees and immigrants."
I never used the term immigrants. My post is about refugees. It's in the title.
Ah...that explains, you talked about refugees while discussing "immigration policy" and came from a wider perspective. While one is clearly a subset of the other, different arguments/policy may apply in respect of admissibility criteria, albeit that I would advocate that cultural integration (in respect of major determinants of course) must be a mandatory requirement for both groups.
Bez
can you define cultural integration?
@Jack: Sure, it's the opposite of forming small enclaves where one perpetuates in all manifestations the culture of the homeland.
Bez
Cultural integration: People of different cultural backgrounds living in a country under one law and one language. Over time, the cultures mix, intermarry, adopt the most advantageous traits of each to eventually give rise to a single new culture.
"Cultural integration: People of different cultural backgrounds living in a country under one law and one language. Over time, the cultures mix, intermarry, adopt the most advantageous traits of each to eventually give rise to a single new culture."
Got an example?
BTW, the paragraph that KG put up for discussion does not say that immigrants should be sponsored, only refugees. Given that most of the point of that discussion was on immigration, I dunno why we're talking about refugees here.
The concern on CR was with the idiocy of this statement- "a completely open immigration policy subject only to a requirement that immigrants waive any claim to remaining elements of the welfare state".
You're mixing apples and oranges for reasons I don't understand.
Got an example?
Umm. Post-Norman England. (Mind you, they did have a civil war a couple of hundred years later...)
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