Dear Corri,

It's important to remember Australia before the wave of migration. It was dull, self satisfied and joylessly conformist. Not simply null and boring, but nullarboring. Not merely mindless, but lobotomised.

I'm talking about the period after World War II, when my parents came to this country. They were 'displaced persons.'( My family ancestry is
Russian) Having lost their country and social position to communism. They discovered the most remote, ethnocentric, inward-looking and changeless society on earth.

I was born in Australia, and when I was growing up, because our family name wasn't Smith or Jones, my playmates didn't have names like, Georgina, Carol, or Anne.

My parents told me about the atrocity stories that were being told about the Japanese and how somewhere in the back of everybody's mind, was the threat of the teeming millions of Asia, otherwise known as the Yellow Peril. As a neighbour pointed out to my mother, "Thank God Australia's coastline is surrounded by so much water"

So of-course whenever 'new' migrants come along. Anyone that is 'different' they're going to be a 'problem' in a society that sees homogeneity as not only desirable but mandatory. There will be tension between the 'locals' and the ethnic groups, not to mention between and within the ethnic groups themselves.

However, what I'm hoping for is that in the end, through interaction and discussion, we'll sort the problems out. That in the process we'll have a more vigorous, exciting Australia. That people will begin to suspect that the world doesn't end sharply a few miles beyond Sydney Harbour or St. Kilda beach.

Frank Gol,
Get your facts straight Frank. There was no concoction about the Tampa incident. The Tampa went to the aid of a sinking vessel and took all on board, then headed to the closest port, in Indonesia, that could accomodate her. While enroute a number of those rescued entered the bridge and made threats to force the ship to change course for Christmas Island. This was a hyjacking. The Tampa Captain gave evidence to an inquiry to this effect.

Our Government rightly decided that we should not be intimidated by this action and refused the Tampa permission to land those rescued and sent our defence forces to intervien. Eventually those the Tampa had rescued were off loaded onto an RAN vessel and taken to Nauru.

The conduct of those rescued was appalling, when they should have been most gratefull that they were saved. I understand they used faeces to desecrate the RAN ship and males exposed and mastabated infront of female crew while enroute.

I believe that none of these people should have been allowed into this country and in fact some should have been tried for hyjacking.

Had the Tampa been allowed to go to Indonesia as planned and word got around about the rescue, the sinking of the SIEV X might never have occurred.

deeper issue? only if you're relaxed and comfortable about the nation being in the hands of a few hundred people whose character would disqualify them from membership in the motor traders association. indeed, many would be thrown out of the east l. a. brotherhood of pimps, dealers, and muggers- for moral turpitude.

if you think labor is any different, you will be continually disappointed. state labor governments are populated by the same amoral snakes.

if you want good government, like good 'anything', you have to do it yourself and/or watch it done.

Dear Banjo,

Just for the record - in 2002, flags bedecked Australia's tabloids as troops, led by the local SAS, joined the Americans for the 'war on terrorism' in Afghanistan. No one knows what they were doing there; Australia was not at war with any country. But it was at war with refugees heading for its shores.

Prior to September 11, 2001 the heroic SAS was assigned to prevent traumatised men, women and children from landing, then steered them to remote Pacific islands (where many contracted malaria). The Prime Minister and at least one of his ministers have been caught lying about 'refugees throwing children overboard.'

A scandal relating to the circumstances surrounding the deaths of 350 men, women and children in a vessel whose unseaworthiness was known to Australian Defence Intelligence and the Royal Australian Navy, which did nothing to save them.

Many of those who have succeeded in reaching Australia receive treatment which, for a society proclaiming humanist values, beggars belief. Imprisoned behind razor wire in some of the most hostile terrain, in what, by any definition, are concentration camps, run by an American company specialising in top-security jails (profit: $387 million a year),the refugees, in their desperation, have resorted to
suicide, starvation, arson and mass escapes. One study reveals that most had experienced terrible suffering before fleeing their homelands. Of thirty-three inmates questioned, nineteen had been tortured, nine had lost, through murder or 'disappearance,' at least one immediate member of the family...

Possible answers to some questions.

Question: Describe the outcome if a Liberal Party member had not tipped off the ALP that this racist pamphlet was being distributed in Lindsay?

(a) Some racists might have given the ALP their vote.
(b) The Liberal Party may have gained some votes of people opposed to racism.
(c) Worst, racists would have been encouraged in their madness.

Question: How did the Liberal Party members come to think distributing such a pamphlet would benefit them and damage the ALP?

(a) The ALP would have been defamed but see (a) above.
(b) See (b) above.
(c) They simply didn’t think it through.

Question: Apart from scale, how does the racist pamphlet scam in Lindsay differ from the top level Liberal concoction of the Tampa and children overboard scams?

(a) There’s no difference. In today’s “Age” Shaun Carney argues that in 2001, John Howard, aided by Philip Ruddock, showed that racism was ‘good business’ for the Liberals. They set the pattern for their underlings to emulate.

(b) Banjo tells me to get my facts straight about Tampa, then goes on to tamper with said facts. Read “Dark Victory” by Marr and Wilkinson, Banjo, or the recent biography of Howard (July 2007) which showed that Howard was told by his Attorney-General's Department that refusing the asylum seekers entry into Australia would breach international law, but that he did so to gain public support in the then upcoming election. Or if books are too hard, try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Tampa

Corri asks: Why would the Liberal party leak this information?

(a) See all of the above, but it could have been a sting. There was a disgruntled member with a score to settle with the Liberal candidate or former Liberal member.
(b) Deperation with the polls showing the Liberal campaign in big trouble.

Q&A asks: “Does anyone really believe the Liberals are so stupid…regardless that they were “sprung”?
The answer is I’m afraid, Yes. Thankfully, there was a Liberal member with a conscience.

Q&A, the fact is that factions within the Liberal party either don't want to win this election on the current premise, or believe that the leaking of the Chijoff / Kelly pamplet drop was going to enhance their election chances? I don't believe it's the latter.

So why would elements within Liberal want to lose the election? What factions are at war within the party? As I asked initially, are the Liberal party imploding?

I also agree with many others that the Labour party aren't necessarily any more moralistic. But feel, due to the traditional base of the Labour party, they are more inclusive of other cultures.

Regardless, we will know soon enough whether the majority of Australians are concerned with race, gender and religion. Or do we only care about our hip pocket? I sincerely hope not.

Demos, are you a member of a political party? You say we need to get involved; I guess through this forum we are encouraging debate and interaction. But I agree, if we are to change the political culture then more of us need to be involved. I was inspired a few years back with Stott Despoya, call me naive but there was a change in the electorate around this time - didn't last long, but there seemed a greater interest in Australian politics.

This thread probably becomes irrelevant within 7 - 12 hours when we see the fate of the election. Though it certainly creates a whole new issue that really needs to be brought to light. The Pauline Hansen party was so successful because it tapped into underlying issues (as highlighted by "People Against ..."), there is obviously an increasing polarisation or culture clash between Christians and Muslims - I hope that we don't go the same way as Europe and many other nations where we force fundamentalist Muslims into believing they fight their way into a position within our nation. Like it or not, many of these people were born here and have every right to live here.

Until the results ...