ix)
Asian migrants will cause serious ethnic problems. Wrong. They won't; we do.
10. Ruthven predicted an increasingly borderless world with movements of people on a scale hard to comprehend. This theme was echoed over dinner on 14 November by Ian Simmington, Principal Adviser (Refugees) at DILGEA who also argued that the world's view of Australia's population was an important factor in determining population/migration levels. Ruthven concluded by predicting a population for Australia of about 150 million by 2088.
Aborigines
11. The Chair of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, Miss Lois O'Donoghue told the familiar story of how Australia's Aboriginal peoples had been the victims of immigration and were now the most disadvantaged group in Australia. She countered the proposition that the Aboriginals were themselves migrants by arguing that 60,000 years could not be compared with 200. She said that racism still existed within Australia. She concluded that Aboriginal people could not be regarded as "just another element in a multicultural Australia". They were the original inhabitants of this land. Some form of special recognition was "a moral imperative". The time had come for a Treaty which would be an Act of Reconciliation between Aborigines and the migrants and their decendents.
Hong Kong
12. Donald Tsang began by saying that his remarks would be an antithesis for the conference. He identified the marked increase in emigration from Hong Kong in recent years and some of the underlying causes: the end of the post Joint Declaration honeymoon (and doubts about post 1997 lifestyle) and increasing opportunity to migrate to eg Canada and the US. He explained the "insurance policy" reasoning underlying the British nationality package. He pointed out that the absolute number of migrants was less important then the types of those leaving and gave a powerful exposé of the problems for key areas of the Hong Kong economy caused by emigration by skilled younger people. was glad that he concluded with the thought that HKG looks to other Governments which shared a responsibility for or interest in Hong Kong's future to understand the impact of their immigration programmes on Hong Kong and to devise ways to moderate adverse effects on Hong Kong. I could see Immigration Minister Hand busily taking notes through much of Donald Tsang's presentation.
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