" Significant Investor " Visas !

It seems that you can " buy " your way into Australia.   The government is prepared to issue a speedy approval of entry visas to those who pledge to spend $ 5 million in Australian investments, and insist that this must include at least $ 1.5 million in " Waratah " bonds.   These bonds appear to be the main funding source for major road projects, such as the Westconnex motorway.

These " Significant Investor " visas are not country sensitive, but the main source of interest is currently coming from China.   As the development of Chinese industry churns out freshly minted millionaires, many are suspicious of the long term tax intentions of their government and are looking to find a bolthole elsewhere in the world - and Australia is a favoured destination.

This is nothing new.  In the past, the moneyed people buying their way into Australia came from Europe. In the days of the " Cold War " it seemed prudent to have sanctuary waiting on the other side of the world in case the worst happened - and Europe descended into another round of it's old ways.

This tends to illustrate the fact that Australia is a country of migrants.   Apart from the Indigenous people, everyone else originally migrated from somewhere else in the world, and that flow has never ceased. Those people born here have roots that go a long way back to just about every other country in the world, with a predominance from the British Isles because they were the original settlers.

We have created a society that is the envy of other parts of the world.   Perhaps it is the remoteness of Australia, tucked away " down under " that has caused newcomers to abandon their old nationality and in a single generation become " Australian " in identity.    That was not common in Europe.    Families tended to live for centuries in countries far from their original homes, but to maintain their language and old nationality - and in many cases this is still the root cause of disharmony and friction.    We have seen a new phenomenon -  Racial Cleansing " - tearing communities asunder and leading to mass murder.

Some will complain that " Significant Investor " visas are simply a favoured form of economic refugees and that the people who risk their lives in leaky boats to get to our shores have exactly the same objectives.  That is true, but economic progress must be a factor in making this land habitable for an ever growing population, and that inflow of funds goes a long way into providing new infrastructure - and delivering much needed new jobs.

In a perfect world we would achieve equality for all.   Such a world has never existed, and probably never will.    What we have works well because we have learned to live with it's inequalities  - and why others beat a path to our door !