Kevin Bain

Kevin Bain has been an economic analyst, social entrepreneur and teacher in Australia and Indonesia. He reviews refugee books at Refugee Research Online and his Reading Guide to refugees, immigration and multiculturalism is hosted by the Bayside Refugee Advocacy and Support Association.

Kevin's recent articles

Inspirational heroes abound discover and promote them

Gellibrand MP Tim Watts draws on his family experience his children, Hong Kong Chinese wife and in-laws for his book The Golden Country: Australias Changing Identity. A modern response to Donald Hornes 1960s Lucky Country, Watts see our future as a golden country, reflecting a largely Asian Australia.

Defusing the Population Bomb: a Response to Paul Collins

Paul Collinss alarm about the environmental challenges facing the planet leads him to overlook the refugee issue I wrote about (Prospects for Refugees and Migrants if Population Bomb goes Bust, 23/7/2020), and line me up with all those he opposes: who think the world needs more people, or more of the same economic growth, or who dont care about climate change or the ongoing loss of species.

Prospects for refugees and migrants if the population bomb goes bust

The University of Washingtons Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) says that the UN projections up to 2100 for global population growth are about 2 billion too high, because fertility rates almost everywhere are dropping much faster than expected.

We asked for footballers, but we got people instead. (with apologies to Max Frisch)

It is said that if we misunderstand our history, we wont solve todays problems. Much in The Australian Dream the new film about the booing of AFL star Adam Goodes and its aftermath reminds us of the need for truth-telling, including the policies of indigenous extermination and soothing the dying pillow.

KEVIN BAIN. Refugees going nowhere - can nothing be done?

In their November 2015 Foreign Affairs article and subsequent book Refuge Transforming a Broken Refugee System (reviewed here), economist Paul Collier and refugee academic Alexander Betts put forward a radical re-think of the refugee support system on the grounds that it is not a good fit for todays world.

KEVIN BAIN. Down with refugee capture and storage! Part 2 of 2

In Part 1 I pointed to opinion research which suggests that European and Australian political leaderships are playing to their narrow base, that the population has not abandoned humanitarian attitudes towards refugees, but do reject the dominant slogans of advocates and the implied consequences. Ill comment on one of the aspects, and report on the 2017 Alexander Betts and Paul Collier book Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System.

KEVIN BAIN. New thinking needed on refugee policy for a new period (Part 1 of 2)

Both Robert Manne and John Menadue have recently put proposals at this blog for better refugee policy. As an amateur who has accumulated an awareness of the counter-intuitions, swirling dynamics and deep knowledge required in this fiendishly complex policy space, I have no detailed prescriptions of my own other than first, do no harm. But the European events and an imminent Australian election suggest an urgency for advocates to review their orthodoxies and adapt to new realities. Theres not much public conversation and it needs to happen.

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