Schrödinger’s Refugees

Recently, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said that “They won’t be numerate or literate … They would languish on unemployment … These people will be taking Australian jobs.” (The Sydney Morning Herald, May 18 2016). He said this in an attempt to make his deliberately cruel treatment of boat people seem vaguely respectable.

But in saying that he unwittingly created what might be called Schrödinger’s Refugees, by postulating that refugees would both languish on unemployment and take Australian jobs,.

Schrödinger’s cat is an idea from the strange realm of quantum physics. Here’s what Wikipedia says: