That is how any are said to be coming to our shores.
What can we do? what should we do?
Is it good for us?
If they all come will half a million come?
I would hope we can debate without racism being slung about[true or false ] and a bias to wards or against such people.
We do however need to talk about it.
Is the answer more aid?
Is it peace in their land?
I know the world I want does not exist, maybe never will but we in the west can do much more.
Not in my view without the country's these poor people are fleeing being accountable too.
Our fate too may lay in the hands of those who make life unlivable in those country's.

Belly,
I saw that article this morning as well and I nust say I am a bit sceptical about its accuracy, at this point.

I recall a few years back, according to the media, there was supposed to be thousands of illegals in Indonesia ready to come to Aus. About that time, the government imposed the temporary visa scheme and we never heard any more about those ready to come. What happened to the thousands or was it a media beat up?

If the information is indeed correct, My opinion is that the government has to revise it softer approach and stop the promise of permanent residency visas. Greater deterrents are needed. You will note the latest arrivals are all young men and one has to at least question why?

No doubt the government is getting further information, which i await with interest.

We need to talk about it do we? Why, when those of us who say something the Left don't like are immediately branded as 'racists' and 'xenephobes'.

Shove it, sport!

As far as I know, we supply cash to Indonesia to fight illegal immigration.
Ever heard of an ambit bid? That's what I think we're seeing here.
Exaggeration to acquire more money, plain and simple.

Dear Belly,

I'm not sure how accurate the figures are -
but they are staggering.

According to the UN High Commission for Refugees -
they have 49,000 registered refugees in Malaysia
and estimates are given at an extra 45,000 unregistered
illegal immigrants.

Strong deterrent messages from
the Australian Government are not cutting through.
People smugglers are simply not paying any attention
and are not passing on any information concerning
under what conditions refugees and immigrants are
accepted into Australia.
The reasons given for choosing Australia - are
comparative cheapness and accessibility.

I don't envy the job our Border Patrols have, nor
that of our Immigration Authorities.

Could the Central Coast put in a bid for some? It had some projected growth that isn’t happening yet. Malaysians will do… oh yeah do they like water? We need jetty’s and market places on the lakes.

They’re the most boring lakes in the world, boats – houseboats!

Make it somewhere interesting for the Sydney people to come on holidays, we have lakes, the beaches, stuff.

We need more motels and hotels. We have a near empty flash (with traffic lights ya know) industrial area. Can someone build a factory with that ambit bid?

MANY MANY more people try to enter our country illegally via AEROPLANE than the occasional leaky boat. That 10,000 figure is of course a TOTAL beat up. Typical tabloid rubbish. But all the paranoid idiots who think they 'own' Australia will be "OUTRAGED". They'll be writing to the press, and on obscure opinion forums, that these scumbags, bludgers and terrorists aboard their leaky boats should be repelled at all costs - - - - "STOP THE INVASION" they'll plead.

Yet, at the same time they are just simply too stupid to realise "THE" portal for illegal entry is, and always has been, our AIRPORTS.

But, nicely dressed people sneaking in relatively anonymously via aeroplane doesn't make front page TABLOID AND GOSSIP COLUMN NEWS does it. No sireeee, BUT those nasty looking, dirty, desperate degenerates (probably all terrorists) in those leaky boats make PERFECT "tabloid" subjects. Yep, lets scare the paranoid among us and publicise that 10,000 horrid invaders are now heading our way.

THAT'S HOW THEY SELL NEWSPAPERS FOLKS. THAT'S HOW THE GOSSIP TV SHOWS (MASQUERADING AS 'CURRENT AFFAIRS') GET AND KEEP THEIR AUDIENCE.

And the paranoid among us fall for it everytime - - - - they just love being outraged.

*Strong deterrent messages from
the Australian Government are not cutting through.*

Ah Foxy, you are so innocent to this world, it is really
sweet :) I mean that in an endearing sense.

The day will come when 50'000 turn up in a year, for
milions seek the cushy Australian lifestyle.

I'll then rub all your noses in it and point out that
I told you so, that the 1951 convention is out of date
and Australia needs to revise its agreement to it.

But you won't believe me, so as commonly happens,
people learn the hard way about the realities of this
world.

So be it, I simply shrug my shoulders these days,
the rest of you can deal with that reality when it hits
you.

There ya go people. Yabby told you first.

Forget about that 10,000 figure of horrid, terrorists invading us by leaky boat.

Now the figure is 50,000 a year. Yes, you heard it here first.

I'm sure Yabby always tells the truth, and gee his post was just soooooooo accurate and precise. AMAZING mathematical work there Yabbs!

I'm now off to get my gun licence renewed. Gotta protect myself against against the MULTITUDE of desperate terrorists in leaky boats.

*Gotta protect myself against against the MULTITUDE of desperate terrorists in leaky boats.*

Do whatever you like Mister, you would not be the first nutcase
to post on OLO :)

As a relative newby here, you are probably not aware that I
have previously offered to charter the QE 2, to bring them
here safely, given that the boat trip and its safety seems to be peoples biggest concern.

So how many do you think that Australia should take? 100'000
a year, double or triple that? It can be arranged lol.

My point all along as been the inconsistancy between our
signature of the 1951 convention, its misuse these days,
and our boat people policy. No politician seems to have
the guts to tackle it and fix it. So we waddle on as best
we can and Kevi just blames those "evil" smugglers.

Europe already has the problem of hundreds of thousands a
year applying, the learnt the hard way and are fighting them
off with sticks.

As the global population heads from 6 million to 9 billion,
clearly the same thing will happen here. The easier we make
it, the more will come.

But its not up to me to decide how many hundred thousand
should arrive. They will go to Sydney, Melbourne, the Gold
Coast etc, not to the backblocks of WA lol.

So its not my concern, but others concern. I am simply
pointing out the realities.

I think you know, that if you are party to blowing up foreign countries then an inflow of refugees should be like you know..expected!

Well Leigh get well soon.
I am proudly left of you, however my views are not supported much on my side of the fence.
Let us look at the issue, Australia is just one of the nations being targeted.
Europe is turning many times ten thousand away each year.
Yabby has a point, like it or not MOST Aussies would not like to see us trade in our culture in a rush to say multi Culturism is our only aim.
We however have much room to talk here, do we care if so many starve to death?
Are we concerned about leadership of some country's forcing these folk to flee or die?
Would we expect help if it was us?
What do those most concerned dislike, race? or is it religion? is it colour? culture?
Are we to question the humanity of boat people?
can we stop ALL of them coming?
In about 1960 a little short pommy teacher got me of guard, I was at school.
He got my interest with this statement,
if every person from a near neighbour jumped into the water to travel to our shores.
the survivors would out number us ten to one.
Nothing Rudd has done will stop them, nothing any one can do will.
Answers exist, we should not help keep wrong governments in power.
Not give aid that is miss used, not forget the humanity of boat people.
But Leigh I may well think on this issue more like you than true left.
the job is hard but we can not turn our back on it.
Even the very left saw some of its people thank John Howard for his actions and that red headed Queensland lady spoke for more Australians than I like.
We in the west should do more to help these nations keep their people at home.

Dear Yabby,

I am concerned. Australia has a water shortage,
and we were told years ago -
that we could realistically
only sustain a population of 19 million (tops).
We've already reached 21 million (and growing) -
so I agree with you Yabster - our Government
does need to re-examine the agreements it
signed, as well as set parameters - on how many
more we're able to take in and sustain.

Perhaps, if restrictions were placed on where people
were to go to live - (not the city centres),
and the jobs they were to do (farming in the North West
of the continent where water appears to be abundant -
and land is vacant - at contracted settlement for 20 years
- would be a good option),
things could be mutually beneficial to all concerned.

Just a thought.

Belly,I would like to have a go at answering some of your questions.

Do we care if many stave to death? Many stave to death now and bringing more here will not reduce the current death rate in the world. Only a reduction in third world population will acheive that.

Are we concernerd about leadership of some countries forcing folk to flee or die? Yes we are concerned, take Afghanistan, Zimbabwee and now possibly Iran and Sri Lanka.

Would we expect help if it was us? Yes from other Western countries to establish democracy again, non western countries don't seem to care and don't help other countries at all. Unlike Iraq, we would welcome the chance to become democratic again.

What is it the most concerned dislike....? Unacceptable cultural changes and lowering the living standards if too many come.

Are we to question the humanity of boat people? Yes they force themselves upon us without regard to others that may be more deserving. They are very selfish.

Can we stop them all coming? The previous government did. With strong deterrents to make it unattractive or not worth the risk.
It will be the present governments fault if there is another Siev X situation as was the last boat that exploded. The government has encouraged the illegals to try their luck.

Master,
You have been here only a month so you may not be aware that the FURPHY of illegals coming here via commercial airlines has been exposed quite a while ago.

You stated.
MANY MANY more people try to enter our country illegally via AEROPLANE than the occasional leaky boat. That 10,000 figure is of course a TOTAL beat up. Typical tabloid rubbish. But all the paranoid idiots who think they 'own' Australia will be "OUTRAGED". They'll be writing to the press, and on obscure opinion forums, that these scumbags, bludgers and terrorists aboard their leaky boats should be repelled at all costs - - - - "STOP THE INVASION" they'll plead.

Yet, at the same time they are just simply too stupid to realise "THE" portal for illegal entry is, and always has been, our airports.
Unquote.

Information from Immigration state clearly that those trying to enter illegally are sent away immediately. 97% are gone within 72 hours. The airlines are obligated to return the illegals to the point of boarding.
You should get your facts correct before making such statements. Looks like you have fallen for media hype.

I agree that the media does beat up storie to sell their products.

Banjo, I think you didn't read what I wrote, even though you quoted it. Basically I said MANY more people enter Australia via illegal entry at airports than enter Australia via leaky boats. That's a FACT. You may not like that fact, but a FACT it is.

The FACT is, people entering this country illegally at airports often, in fact very often, do so successfully. There's many thousands of such people living and working in Australia. The authorities have a hell of a hard time tracing and then actually physically locating them. Many people spend many, many long years in Australia illegally. Maybe you should do a bit more research on the topic, and you will discover this to be "FACT".

*The FACT is, people entering this country illegally at airports often, in fact very often, do so successfully*

Not so Mister, for when people arrive at airports, they have a
passport, a tourist visa etc, the Govt knows who they are. There
is nothing illegal about that.

Yes, many on a tourist visa might overstay their visa, or try to
stay here for good, or apply for asylum as they like our cushy
lifestyle, but they did not come here illegally at all.

Perhaps things have changed, but last time I flew, airlines were
checking visas overseas at check in time, overseas, before anyone
arrived here. They don't really like to carry them all the way
back for free.

Master its no fact Banjo has told you what it is yabby too now me.
Banjo I am if nothing a realist.
Yes the outcome of open doors is not improving world living standards ,just reducing ours.
I however want better outcomes, less mouths to feed is a start, birth control but how do you impose it?
And where?
India it is said, is it true? see,s child murder if the child is not a son.
China may well be the same.
Right now horrible acts drive middle east and far east people to risk every thing to come here.
Or never forget we are just one country of a great many, European , American, bound people.
It is said Howard stopped them, he did but at what cost to our good name?
The UN that total wast of air and money gave us heaps, and if real could fix this problem.
Aid must be withdrawn, yes massive deaths but stopped to country's that use it as weapons or only feed some self reliance must be first step.
Now, curled up in a ball under my desk I whisper this.
This proud left of centre till death trade unionist is afraid.
I am all for true multi Culturism, two cultures ours and theirs ok no pain.
I understand it can not be easy coming to a new land.
But I am afraid, far too many second and third generation migrants still say they are not Aussies.
And call us names yes act like racists , I prefer fools to describe them.
I dare not say the nationality or religion of those I fear but I am no racist.
If we each said lets pay another $50 a week tax to give such people a life in their own country even that would not work.
If this country said we will take one million this year ,it would not work ten million would ask to come next year.
But we must not let such horrible lives go without looking for answers.

Whether or not the figure of 10,000 is correct, asylum seeker numbers are rising worldwide due to conflicts in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sri Lanka etc. We can expect numbers of 'boat people' trying to seek asylum in Australia to increase concomitantly in coming years, although Australia will, by virtue of its geographical position, continue to have proportionately less refugees arriving by boat than comparable European countries.

I think that Australia should increase the number of refugees we accept under our Humanitarian Programme and reduce to zero the number of applicants accepted under the skilled migration and other immigration programs. We should also negotiate with the Indonesian and/or Malaysian governments in order to radically increase our capacity to process offshore applications for asylum.

I also think that the beleaguered and ineffectual Opposition will try and exploit the increased numbers of asylum seekers by returning to the inhumane tactics of the Howard regime, that appealed to the widespread latent xenophobia and/or racism of many Australians - such as we see expressed by some of the usual suspects in this forum.

It will be ugly.

By the way, the second largest group of successful asylum seekers in Australia in recent years came from China by air, on various other kinds of temporary visas, and applied for asylum once here. However, we don't tend to hear about them because they arrive singly or in small family groups, and are apparently not as newsworthy as the hapless souls who arrive by boat.

Good thread Belly.

Yes CJ, asylum seekers trying to come to Australia are only going to increase in number as conflicts worsen around the world, if there is any chance of them being able to come here. The problem was pretty well under control when Rudd won the top job. The last thing we needed was for him to be so utterly stupid as to water down the policy and reopen the door to people-smugglers.

Howard’s policy had effectively stopped onshore asylum seeking. We had reached the point where there was practically no one left in detention centres and no one on the way for it to apply to. So why on earth did Rudd feel the need to tamper with it?? ?? ?? ??

No CJ, Howard’s policy was not inhumane. It was a pretty damn good balance in an awfully difficult situation, between accepting asylum seekers and processing their claims and then accepting the vast majority of them as refugees, while implementing the vitally important deterrence factor.

Numerous times on this forum we have discussed this and the discussion has come to a grinding halt when I have asked you and others how you would have done it differently, in such a manner that would not have opened the proverbial floodgates. You don’t have an answer to this do you.

I agree that Australia should increase the number of refugees we accept, but only within our formal immigration program. And yes, we should also greatly reduce our skills intake.

-This immigration thing, it’s very “us” vs “them”.

-I know your average Aussie thinks this is a great place to live but there is a feeling of more people will ruin it for them. The water thing: For every human that arrives you could get rid of one farm animal aye.

-I thought the biggest number of immigrants might be Kiwi’s but you wouldn’t notice since they don’t have to seek asylum and stuff?

-I saw on the news the other night that Japan is sending immigrant home now – the South Americans back home with the offer of a free one way ticket.

I liked Yabby’s big ship idea. Make it a big ship that cruises forth once a year around the world and anyone who doesn’t get on does not make their own way here. Take charge, you go get them and don’t let them come to you. Do all the paper work and medical stuff on the boat. By the time the boat gets back you know who you’re getting, where they want to be and what their skills are. Teach them some culture etc before they get here - teach them what being an Aussie is.

But on that note; even I don't know yet.

Belly,
There is, no doubt, things we may not agree on, but I agree that you are a realist and also a practical person.

I wish I had the answers to the problem of the over population of third world countries. If one looks at the number of births per woman (wrongly termed 'fertility') the West seems to have that well under control. China's one child policy is very harsh and in some cultures abortion and infanticide are practised for economic or cultural reasons. Maybe parents need to have sterilization carried out after they produce say 2 kids, but what then happens if one kid dies? Tough issue that needs a lot of high level disscussion.

In relation to bad governments that drive people to seek a better life elsewhere. Another tough question. The UN does not seem very effective so I do not have an answer. Zimbarwe is a total mess and I had hopes that Iraq may embrace democracy but since the fall of Hussein the people there have been more intent on trying to get supperiority over each others groups. The coalition were busy trying to prevent outright civil war. Let us see what happens now. So there are 2 problems, one of bad government and the other is groups that cannot get on with each other.

If the projected figures of possible illegals is anywhere near correct, the present deterrents will have to be more effective. I see not other course at this point. The previous government did reduce the illegals from about 5000 per year to near zero.

I still would like to know what happened to those left in Indonesia that did not try to come here a few years ago.

I would like, on another occassion, to obtain your thoughts regarding multiculturalism and the integration of some cultures. It seems a bit off subject for this thread.

This land can't cope with any more people - skilled or refugees. Where will we get more water?

But CJ, 'I think that Australia should increase the number of refugees we accept under our Humanitarian Programme and reduce to zero the number of applicants accepted under the skilled migration and other immigration programs' - we simply can't afford to be humanitarian if it brings in the death-knoll of our way of life. In the past you picked me up for supporting skilled migrants against refugees when I already advocated no immigration. I repeat myself that we can't afford any more immigrants but, in a worst case scenario, if we had to take more, I would rather have skilled migrants who could put something back into our society than people who would look to the already hard-pressed public for basic support and more. Where I would agree with you would be that if a skilled migrant and a refugee were equally qualified or experienced, I would have no problem in giving the refugee first choice as the skilled migrant would probably not suffer from rejection.
Saying that, I still don't think that we can afford any more people.

Actually, Master's quite right about fly-in illegal immigrants. The 97% rejection figure is misleading. Certainly, 97% of people who arrive at an airport without the right documents and claim asylum are sent straight home, but those that have the right documents and then overstay make up an estimated 500000 illegal immigrants.

According to this report (http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25424350-421,00.html), most illegal immigrants are from China, Malaysia, and - get this - the US and Britain. Would anyone like to guess how the rhetoric would change if the government wanted to crack down on white, English-speaking illegals?

Newer posters, such as Master, will eventually notice that many of OLO's fiercest critics of asylum seekers are even fiercer when it comes to birth control and population management. The third world is told that it must choose between going to hell after death or living there during life.

*Until last week, illegal foreigners were immediately detained at detention centres and put on planes home within weeks.*

Sancho, sounds to me like all colours were treated the same,
according to your link.

*The third world is told that it must choose between going to hell after death or living there during life.*

The third world is told that breeding like rabbits is likely to
lead to hunger, poverty and overpopulation and Australia cannot
solve the world's problems.

Third world women should have access to family planning services
like Western women do. Hey presto, many of their problems would
go away.

But yes, the Catholic Church still threatens those in the third
world with going to hell and other Catholic jokes. Being less
educated, many of the gullible tend to believe the old Papa's
rubbish. I too suffered from Catholic nuns trying to brainwash
me as a 5 year old.

We all know that the Catholic Church is anti condoms, anti the pill,
anti anything which might stop more little Catholics from being
born. It is high time that third world women had the same rights
as first world women, despite those old farts in Rome.

I like to know what aborigenes say about more refugees.
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

I would hope that they're treated the same, Yabby. But how often do we hear bellicose calls to jail or deport these freeloaders, versus the crescendo of attacks on boat people?

Immigration and asylum are important issues, but so rife with hypocrisy and racism that the signal is hard to distinguish from the noise.

I think the pull factor is real.
I don't know what proportion of boat people are sent back.
I suspect very few as they arrive having thrown their passports
overboard and so the Australian government has no proof of their
nationality and other governments will not accept undocumented people.
The government needs to publicize how many are sent back.
This figure would be a deterrent.

You will notice the boats are getting larger and the number on board is
increasing. How long before they are buying small tramp freighters at
the end of their life and putting one, two or three thousand on board ?
That is what happened in Italy.

If they are sent back to their port of departure without documentation
the Indonesians, if that was where they came from, have every right
to refuse entry.

I would fuel them up and send them away. They will get tired of
going around and around and claim citizenship in their home country.
Don't forget how they got to Malaysia and Indonesia, they didn't
walk or paddle a canoe, they bought plane tickets.

Belly said;
>It is said Howard stopped them, he did but at what cost to our good name?
In whose view, just the mad trendies who say come one come all !
There is more at stake than our good name.

CJ Morgan; The Indonesian and Malaysian governments would rather wave
them goodbye on leaky boats than sort them out in their countries
and leave the rejects there.
They have enough already hanging around waiting for a boat now.

The problem is unsolvable in a be nice way.
It is going to require a brutal solution. Live with it.

With energy depletion and falling food production, it could happen
this 10,000 could rapidly turn into 10 million.
Where do you all stand then ?

The problem of overpopulation is a fascinating impasse. There is no ethical solution to dealing with the sheer numbers, the refugee crisis and the projected exacerbation caused by climate change. We're headed for utter chaos and death on an unprecedented scale. We cannot diplomatically afford to refuse refugees, given our precarious geopolitical stance, and we cannot possibly accommodate the probable numbers. So my "modest proposal" is that we stage a "humane cull" that will stabalise populations. I should think we'd have to go quite a bit beyond mere decimation, and in this "post-biblical" intervention, in the interests of equality all countries would naturally sustain the same percentage loss of population. It would be a relatively simple matter to design a nano-virus or something that randomly selected say seven in ten for a painless exit? The remainder could then have a go at creating a decent world. This would be a far more humane way to deal with the problem, just as it is when Kangaroo populations become unsustainable, than waiting for the chaos, famine and murder of crunch time. The plan obviously needs a bit of tinkering, but I'd be surprised if there were not a few think tanks around the world doing just that.

Boat people are easy targets for bigoted Australians. They're readily visible, desperate, almost always get caught and make GREAT cannon fodder for the tabloids.

Most people who readily and eagerly criticise these desperate people in leaky boats, are at the same time quite happy to ignore the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of people currently living illegaly in Australia. Just look at the responses to my earlier posts. These posters seem to be in DENIAL - - - - one even gave the impression that he believes virtually ALL people who try to enter illegally at airports are sent back. You know what they say, ignorance is bliss. It's the EASIEST THING IN THE WORLD to have documents that are, or appear, to be in order. Once in, they then disappear into Australia society, and become "honoury" citizens, with most of them never being caught.

But I really don't think those attitudes are "ignorance"; surely the posters couldn't be that stupid. I think these posters really KNOW that there's many, many thousands of people living illegally in Australia. But these illegal entrants won't be criticised with the same brutality that's shown against the boat people. Why? Because thousands and thousands of these illegal entrants are WHITE skinned and/or come from cultures that have a lot in common with Australia: While the boat people are mostly darker skinned people, often from Muslim cultures, and they're desperate in the extreme in order to escape their often brutal past existence. They make perfect cannon fodder for hard nosed, paranoid Australians to whom basic humanity comes second to "FORTRESS AUSTRALIA". We're lucky though that not ALL Australians are like that.

M: while I largely agree with you, I think you’ve missed an obvious point. The reason those over-stayers etc aren’t noticeable, or threatening, is because they fit in, they assimilate, and become just another face in the crowd, whereas most of the others, boaties et. al. DON’T. They want to carry on their culture and social attitudes here, and stand out by doing so.
I say, scrap multiculturalism, and re-introduce assimilation, if you want to be a part of this country, do so, if you want to live as you did elsewhere, go there. What does it benefit anyone to have enclaves of foreigners amongst us? The previous waves of immigrants gradually adapted, to the point where no-one cares about an Italian or Greek name, fr’instance, and it’s rapidly becoming true of the Vietnamese etc too.
If the Islamic groups would only do the same they would see less strife.
To criticize us and our society, to demand WE change to suit their ideas, to allow them to continue practices we abhor, and to reject assimilation, all guarantee trouble.
All our ancestors were immigrants, once, and they sweated blood, gave their sons and daughters, suffered hardships, and struggled mightily, to build this nation we all love.
Are we now to allow another bunch to come in and wreak havoc on what they built, change it beyond recognition, reduce the standard of life that brought them here in the first place, because of an out-dated Ideal?
Stuff that for a game of soldiers!

Sancho did you want to say half a million illegal migrants came here via planes?
Or are my eyes playing up.
Now remember the wars that have driven these people out. compare our numbers to those of other western nations.
And as said very well up the thread see how we are first choice for some because we are closer.
Rubbish! the idea John Howard could stop them, unfortunate remark A S but not worth debating you your mind is closed.
There is an answer we do not yet know what it is, but it is not open door, not increasing intake, and not blind stupidity, I may be one of CJM,s usual suspects but while I would go hungry to feed them I will never pretend we can solve it.
Every one we save will see 20 die in poverty.
Skilled migration is not such an issue while we are in recession, but much needed until we return to training our own.
IF the UN cared, a big if and had true power, we could with confidence help build better life at home for these people.
We can not turn our backs as Bazz said and get over it, we humans are no better than any animal if we can watch so much pain and not be moved.
Last I say again I never want to see my country and culture swamped by do gooders good but blind intentions.
If I am biased it is against no race.
I am however biased, against EVERY form of religion that calls for separation of the human race.
Some cultures are so very different I can not understand them, just as many, thinking of you AS, can not understand mine.

Max wrote "All our ancestors were immigrants once, and they sweated blood, and they gave their sons and daughters, suffered hardships, and struggled mightily to build this nation we all love?"

My comment - - - yes that's true Max, the ABORIGINAL people 'the original migrants' did all that

Max wrote "Are we now to allow another bunch to come in and wreak havoc on what they built, change it beyond recognition, reduce the standard of life that brought them here in the first place?"

My comment - - - and then "OUR" ancestors came and did to the aboriginal people what you don't want done to YOU from the boat people.

Think about it Max.

Then when you're through 'thinking about it', think a bit more about your absurd "BELIEF" that, in modern times, immigrants (be they legal or illegal) will "wreak havoc" on society, change it beyond recognition and reduce the standard of living". That's EXACTLY what the more ignorant among us in the 50s believed about the Italians and Greeks. We called them "WOGS", and felt threatened by their culture. Later on we felt threatened by the Chinese, in the 70s it was the Arabs. We're now scared of the people from Somalia. Have you read the recent press about the Indians? We're attacking and vilifying them now. ALL these races, covering diverse cultures, have been BENEFICIAL for Australia. Any boat people who eventually legally gain residence will be BENEFICIAL for Australia.

'New' Australians often work a damn sight harder, and make better citizens, than 'some' whinging, pampered 'old' Australians.

Fear of other cultures was what the White Australia Policy was based on. There's plenty of Australians who would like to see a return to those paranoid days.

Belly & Squeers:
It will not matter what anyone says there will be a
die off, or a large reduction in world population due to infertility
caused by malnutrition.

We can join them by allowing millions to come here or we can survive
by keeping our population to manageable levels.
Thats the way it is, the earth has reached maximum sustainable level and
from now on growth will be history.

There is no way the UN or anyone will be able to do anything about it.
You may have seen the UN Food organisation warning that they are
scrapping the bottom of the silos.

Sure it is dismal, but there it is. How soon ?
Not long before it starts I think, but hard to be certain.

M:
“the ABORIGINAL people 'the original migrants' did all that”
: Actually, no, they didn’t. They arrived, did the absolute bare minimum to survive, and stopped there. They contributed a lot of names to this nation, and the odd individual has made contributions, but overall there’s little to reflect them in our society. Sad, but true.

“and then "OUR" ancestors came and did to the aboriginal people what you don't want done to YOU from the boat people.”
: And then you go on to deny that it will happen, make up your mind. The destructive influences are inherent in having a culture among us that insists on difference, that holds as a basic tenet the god-given superiority of its religion and culture. They look down on our way of life, our dress, our liberties, our religions, or lack thereof, just about everything, yet they come here? Read the Q’ran, it is no “love n’ kisses” tome like the New Testament, it’s a warriors tale, and a strict guide to life, the universe, and everything!
Times past have proved that Islam CAN co-exist, as long as it takes an adaptive, moderate course, yet with the Wahabi sect and it’s worldwide net of oil-funded madrasahs pouring out fundamentalists at an incredible rate, what hope of that?
That flood influences things here, makes for tensions, and misunderstandings.
As for the Somalis, they present a particular problem, not unique, but intense. They come from an extremely violent place, where life is held to be of little value. Many have problems adjusting, and the lost ones among them can inflict terrible suffering upon innocent people here. I’m fully aware that the numbers involved are tiny, and I have worked with a really nice family guy who happened to be Somali, and have no problems with they, or anyone else who’s willing to join us, coming here as an individual.
But I refuse to close my eyes and not see the storm on the horizon, as many prefer to do.
“Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of History are doomed to repeat them”

My bad, Belly. It should read fifty thousand.

Maximillion, the claim that the overstayers assimilate while boat people stand out is the reddest of herrings. We don't know how boat refugees behave because they're immediately shipped off to detention.

It sounds more like every time you see someone obviously foreign you assume they're a refugee, and not a student or hospitality worker that's on the lam from their visa.

Sancho,
Actually, if my memory serves me right, there are about 500,000 overstayers or illegal immigrants here at any one time. Most are simply tourists that have simply overstayed their visa and they fly out and are replaced by other overstayers. A small percentage when one considers the number of tourists and visitors and they are spending money while they are here.

The ones that arrive without proper docs. are called 'illegal entrants' and are sent packing ASAP.

I do not know how many longer term 'illegal immigrants' there are or how many students dissappear after their courses are finished. If you have any accurate info on that, it could be interesting.

I did read your link to the news item, but cannot find anything official about it either on the Immigration website or the Ministers website. Noted that it did not quote any source. I have emailed the authors seeking confirmation, but may have to contact the Ministers office.

It could be significant because it is a big change and if correct lots more may come here on tourist visas and simply stay, also could promote a much larger false docs. industry here in false medicare cards and tax file numbers. The unfortunate thing about illegal immigrants is that they are nost vulnerable to exploitation from unscrupulous employers, landlords and others. Women exploited in sweatshops and as prostitutes.

At present the illegals are caught up with, probably through intelligence and we will always have some that decide to stay after coming as tourists, etc. and unless we become a police state that will remain so. I feel particularly for the women in sweatshops and the sex slaves. I think more could be done to help them as most are lured here under false pretences.

Ma:
“We don't know how boat refugees behave because they're immediately shipped off to detention.”
And from there the majority come here, as previously attested, so, yes, we do

“It sounds more like every time you see someone obviously foreign you assume they're a refugee, and not a student or hospitality worker that's on the lam from their visa.”

If I thought it worth it, which I don’t, I’d ask how the harengleflarb you arrived at that conclusion. This town of mine is more full of every race and colour than any other city in Oz, lol, I listen to voices before I even attempt to guess where someone’s from, and even then I’m often wrong! The only problem I have with others of any type, is the number our Gov’ is allowing in. As long as they adapt to our way of life, I don’t give a rodents posterior who or what they are, end of.

Well children, you are going to have to open your doors even more
in future. For a new trend has started.

India, China, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, fearing food
shortages in future, are simply leasing large chunks of Africa
to grow the stuff for their increasing populations back home.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/5673437/India-joins-neocolonial-rush-for-Africas-land-and-labour.html

No doubt those in power will cash in the lease money and more
landless Africans will be the result, kept alive by Western food
aid, or potentially refugees for Australia, if they had any money,
like those who can afford the trip to Australia. But of course
those ones don't touch your heartstrings, for they don't ussually
appear on Australian tv.

Nobody seems game to name figures. How many would you like, Mister?
5 million, 10 million ? There are plenty out there, all
needing a home.

And the illogical, misinformed paranoia continues.

Seems like Indonesia is fishing for a bigger handout from the Australian taxpayer.

You can either accept that despite all the best intentions or hopes, things are always changing and deal with things as they happen - or you can stand on the shore like King Canute and try to hold back the tide.

Then again you can do something to address the cause.

You can build a fence at the top of the cliff or just park an ambulance at the bottom.

Master I welcome you to the forum with open arms.
But can you leave just a little bit of that ego in the bucket at the door?
All comment, all views, should be welcome, remember that theory the bloke who sweeps the floor may have the answer that saves the firm.
This impending ,or a least threatened flood is historic, can not be compared with ANY migration to our country ever.
If we manage it badly, say open door, ten years from now we will all be hungry and no longer the country we know today millions could come, just in that time.
They may yet it has been put well up the thread, food shortages and wars are going to become worse.
I however believe the UN and world has a roll to play stabilise some country's, introduce real technology to grow food not drugs create nations for these folk to live in, yes that too may fail, we just can not continue to grow world population and not pay for it.
But if you live in NSW look out your window, see the western dust from paddocks blown away over the east coast ,we can not forever ignore this country's limits.
Back to master, it is not racist to say not every migrant ,not even the children of their children, is a great migrant.
IF we could only see a world not driven by so many dividing religions we just maybe could find answers, it is time to see humanity alone is accountable for its actions

Maximillion
Are we now to allow another bunch to come in and wreak havoc..?
Realy? migrants wreak havoc? I am afraid that you hate migrants...
"I say, scrap multiculturalism"
Do not you know that the freedom of religious is protected from international law?
Do not you know that migrant's freedom of expresion is protected from international law?
Do not you know that what we call multiculturarism in realy is protected from international law, that this is part of the human rights?
What do you want to withdraw australia from HRC of UN?
Do you want to convert australia to a champion of violation of migrant's rights?
Who tell you that Only you know what is NOW the australian values?
Who tell you that ONLY you care for the future of australia?
Only a small minority of australians agree with your ideas about multiculturalism and ethnic minorities. Read the surveys about it read the studies about it.
With your ideas about multiculturalism and ethnic minorities you put your self beyont the One Nation!
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

As I predicted - the usual blather about racism and wild statements on what other people think. A few new posters who think that it all hasn't been said countless times before.

In a way, I hope 10,000 of the bastards do turn up, and all of the idiots and smart alecs on OLO are asked to work the problem out.

But Leigh, you're the very model of the racist xenophobe you mention in your first post.

There are pros and cons to immigration and, as Master has demonstrated, the prejudice against immigrants is strangely focussed on the manner of arrival of one lot but not of another.

Immigration is chiefly a sustainability issue, but for you, it's a simple hatred of brown people that you like to tack on to other, more considered arguments.

I'm quite used to this, so I invite anyone to look at Leigh's post history and decide for themselves whether his opposition to immigration is based on anything more profound than fear and rank racism.

Sancho wrote, "the prejudice against immigrants is strangely focused on the manner on arrival on one lot, but not of another".

This is FACT. This has been my point all along.

It's a fact that this skewered view is practiced by a large minority of fearful and ignorant Australians.

On this topic, some people here have displayed a ready reluctance, until pushed, to even remotely recognise that the VAST bulk of people living here illegally came in via airports. Many thousands upon thousands of people have become "honoury" citizens, living and working in this country for decades and decades, yet they're here illegally. Others have their reasons to stay here for 1 month, 6 months, 1 year, 5 years, 10 years etc etc. Anyone wishing to disrupt, terrorise, spy etc etc will enter via "AIRPORTS". Gaining entry to this country, for the purpose of illegal residence, or other specific illegal purposes, is NOT hard, if you know what you're doing. Thousands do it EVERY year.

YET - -

'Some' Aussies either ignore it, or only recognise it when they are pushed on the subjectt.

Why is this so?

It's because, the people who enter via airports mostly look and act like "US". Whereas, the desperate people in leaky boats "DON'T".

Conclusion: These stupid Australians, who are ONLY concerned about "boat" people, are concerned out of **FEAR OF RELIGIOUS AND/OR CULTURAL DIFFERENCE** - - - - typical, ignorant Aussie bigotry harking back to older times that even predate the White Australia Policy.

Some Australians wanted migrants only from UK but they found that last years the britain citizens who migrate in australia come from asian or african background!
They lost their hope for a WHITE (anglo saxon)controled australia and now they fight for the isolation of australia.
I said them many times"stop crying white australia is dead, it can can not reteurn back, come with us, with the rest of australians, we are friends and understand and care for you!"
I am sure soon or later they will understand the australian reality, that their dream for a "white australia" is dead and they will come with us.
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

Dr Eva Sallis in her article in The New York Times,
17 Dec. 2005 points out that:

"Newcomers, especially those who form linguistic
or ethnically distinct groups, always have a hard
time in Australia at first... But Australia is a
country that has been created by many streams of
immigrants and has come out the better for it..."

So, why the fear of 'Boat People?'

Again, Dr Sallis explains that,

"Our leaders have given tacit approval and support
for this fear through policy, whether this is
policy on refugees, security or Indigenous affairs.
The policy of mandatory detention of asylum
seekers was strongly linked with border protection from
2001, and, as most asylum seekers of recent years have
been from the Middle East and Muslim South Asia,
"border protection" has become protection from Muslim
refugees in the popular imagination..."

Just like the US, Australia has anti-terrorism
legislation, first passed in 2002 and significantly
strengthened since. These laws have also helped to
validate broader community mistrust of Arabs and
Muslims.

As Dr Sallis states:

"Our governments have done little to substantively
allay any fears of Muslim and Middle Eastern people
generally or to increase public understanding and
appreciation of their culture and possible contribution
to Australian life. Arabic is the fourth most commonly
used language after English in Australia, and the
most commonly used language after English in New South
Wales, Sydney's home state, yet it is taught in only
a handful of schools and universities..."

The point that Dr Sallis is trying to make is that if
"contemporary Australians are to live at ease with
themselves, they need more education, less fear
mongering, and greater honesty about the culture of
racism that is so damaging..."

I suspect that Leigh and many others are pining for times long past - the days of the little white picket fence around the rose-covered cottage, back when men were men and women and blacks knew their place in society.

It is an emotional subject, one that seems to blind extremes of both sides to reality.
And self appointed experts truly think only their side has merit, such as master.
That finger pointing stupidity, saying airport refugees look like us? come master think about that.
And to all who claim racism is behind the concerns again nothing but goose feathers.
Numbers, sustainability, are we threatened or benefited by boat people?
Is todays multi Culturism in any way like the refugee intake post ww2?
Do I have reason to ask why yesterdays migrants helped make us the country we are and settled well respected and no problem.
Every time some one expresses a fear about some people from some groups do we have to see them called racist.
Is fear of some, from some religions wrong?
Are we, yes we who are left of centre happy with the way some cultures treat women?
Is it ok to have double standards because we are not conservatives?
Yes a big subject big problem for the whole world, just a thought, please think about it, if we got in those boats, say to leave an Australia governed by Turnbull, would we be welcome in these country's?
Would our feelings of pain and wanting to help be returned?
Are our freedoms being used against us some times?

Belly wrote " and self appointed experts truly think only their side has merit, such as master".

Oh Belly, Belly, Belly. Maybe you should actually "read" my posts in full. I have pointed out that the complaints from most people who complain about people illegally in this country - - - - are about BOAT PEOPLE * *ONLY * *.

If anything it's YOU who have taken "sides". YOU have chosen to ignore the hundreds of thousands of illegal entrants in favour of the vilification of boat people - - - now THAT'S taking sides.

Now, both you and I know (even though you won't admit it) that it's MUCH easier for an entrant into Australia to plan an illegal entry via an AIRPORT (you just falsely claim the reasons for you being here, and back it up with the required evidence - - - - all pre arranged and nicely packaged), you make sure you look ordinary and inconspicuous; and once in, you "blend" into society (if your long term goal is a lengthy illegal stay).

Now, both you and I also know this is NOT NOT NOT the case with boat people. They're EXTREMELY conspicuous and need rather specialised assistance (owing to their traumatic pasts) to enable eventual full integration into society. The genuine refugees among them who have in the past been granted asylum have shown they MAKE FANTASTIC CITIZENS of this country.

It's the illegal "smarties", who are NOT refugees, who are NOT impoverished and who are NOT desperate, who gain illegal entry into this country via AIRPORTS that are the REAL PROBLEM. You only need to ask any State or Federal Police Officer who has had to deal the crime and social dislocation they often cause.

So to all you people here taking "SIDES", that is ---- ignoring the hundreds of thousands of illegal people in this country **BUT** denigrating "just" the boat people, you need to open your eyes and admit to REALITY.

Master:”It's the illegal "smarties", who are NOT refugees, who are NOT impoverished and who are NOT desperate, who gain illegal entry into this country via AIRPORTS that are the REAL PROBLEM. You only need to ask any State or Federal Police Officer who has had to deal the crime and social dislocation they often cause.”

Hey that’s me!

Anyone round here work in that building in Sydney that makes you a citizen? Do I have to sit the test… if I take an iphone and ask on line the day of the test will you help me?

What does permanency mean in centrelink speak? Why am I not understanding this?

http://www.citizenship.gov.au/applying/application-process/other/eligibility.htm

Are you saying you are here "illegally" or are you saying you are here but have just not yet become a citizen? There's a difference you know.

“I like to know what aborigines say about more refugees.”

I'm part European, part Palawa, part Koori, why do you think we're lining up to join Norforce, one pack of religious arseholes in the country is enough, and they're doing their best to exterminate us. Our population remained pretty stable over many thousands of years, we knew it could only sustain a small number with it's frail and ancient environment. Monotheistic invaders destroyed the worlds oldest culture in a few short years and ecology in 200 years, which equates to their mentality. Yet they demand to allow more primitive morons into the country to stuff it even more.

They're mostly men on these boats because they're cowards and know once they're accepted here, they go back, marry and bring back their two families. For every hundred coming by boat, we end up getting a few thousand when you add up those following them via the stupid family reunion scheme.

How many are aware refugees on Christmas island are being taught by christian missionaries whose stated aim is to bring "non-Western" people to Christianity”. http://www.smh.com.au/national/missionaries-providing-lessons-for-christmas-island-detainees-20090701-d594.html The government has privatised detention and opened the door for nutters to confuse and heat up the situation even more.

We owe nothing to muslim's, christians and for that matter any who were not forced to come to this land in chains. How much more damage do you want to create before you're satisfied. Monotheists are destroying Europe, have destroyed the middle east, Africa, the America's and are destroying Asia. Now they want to destroy the last relatively sane country on the planet with their sick minds.

Master:“Are you saying you are here "illegally" or are you saying you are here but have just not yet become a citizen? There's a difference you know.”

I’m Kiwi, we just cruise in and out randomly. But I am here to stay now and want to do the citizenship thing. Is there some course you have to do like beginners guide to throwing stones at boat people? What about101 in making the Aboriginals miserable and then saying sorry afterwards? Do I have to write a thesis on abusing children and then the subsequent amnesia that follows?

I guess legally there is a difference Master and I think I am useful here but there is a distinct feeling of not being welcome. Can’t think why.[smirk]

Honest guys – I never drink water. I practice saying feesh and cheeps every night instead of prayers and once grilled a small prawn on that thing outside that fire comes out of. I promise to learn how to beat up my husband and throw tomatoes at all NRL players I might spot in public. I don’t know a single chorus of the national anthem and will tell sheep jokes at every opportunity. I have nearly convinced myself Split Enz are Australian and the best footy players weren’t originally from New Zealand. I will ignore the rest of the world and everything outside of my own state. With more practice I can truly believe the pavlova was from here as well as anyone who moved here recently that becomes famous in America. I am even determined to swap my two miniature poodles for a couple of staffy pups. My fridge will be full of beer and empty of any fruit if a hurricane strikes anywhere in the country.

LET ME STAY! I WAS BORN TO BE AUTRALIAN!

PS… I’ve climbed Ayres Rock and signed the book! Yeah home dogs, hood.

Phase out the skilled migrant programme and train our young. All the skilled migrants I have met are very fine people but they’re here partly because in their own countries, they are breeding like rabbits, living in poverty and/or fighting each other.

Return to providing our non-academic kids with apprenticeships after completing Year 10. After all those who don’t want to be at school, often create mischief for those who do.

Why do we accept illegal refugees who are sufficiently affluent to pay air-fares or people smugglers when women and children are languishing in huge refugee camps around the world? Often beaten, raped or murdered (and penniless) they have little chance of a better life.

News travels fast around the world and we can expect to see many more illegal refugees jumping the queue if Australia fails to send a clear message, that illegal refugees will not be given priority over others more in need, therefore, they will be deported.

There are some 279,000 refugees in a refugee camp in Northern Kenya and 2.5 million in Darfur, surviving on a UN food programme. Many of the women are falling pregnant.

Our foreign aid policy should be restricted only to those countries which have effective family planning programmes and Australia's policy should be spelt out in a non-coercive manner.

Diplomacy and humanitarian endeavours must also include looking after our own interests and that includes an essential requirement for a planet which is inhabitable.

Population explosions, conflicts, corruption, food and religious wars are occurring around the globe and Australia is by and large, impotent in the dust ups. That is no reason for Australian citizens to go on a guilt trip simply because they live in a peaceful nation and have a superior standard of living – well for the time-being since already, they are struggling to sustain the arid, brown, saline desert they call home.

Pied Piper,
There are special provisions for Kiwis and i assume Aussies in NZ

On that page you gave the link to. On the left side you will see a box marked New Zealand citizens. Click that and follow the prompts.

You are not illegal, all Kiwis can come and go as they please and work, etc. I think you filling out an incoming passenger card is regarded as a visa application, but not sure.

The only advantage in being a citizen over a permanent resident is mainly that you can, sorry have to, vote and can stand for election. But you have to be here 4 years to be eligible.

Your biggest obstacle in becoming a citizen would be your extensive criminal and penal record. (He, He. We're fussy you know)

'Your biggest obstacle in becoming a citizen would be your extensive criminal and penal record. (He, He. We're fussy you know)'

Oh my god, I had no idea it was still a requirement!

I didn't see the NZ thing on the left... now I do feel stink..

Cheers Banjo baby.

Asymeonakis, you’ve managed to read a heck of a lot into my posts THAT WAS NOT THERE!
Personaly, I’d happily see Oz pull out of everything U.N., lock, stock, and barrel, but it’s never going to happen, and I accept that, in the hope that one day the U.N. just MIGHT become what it was supposed to be, instead of a cash-cow for a bunch of bungling bureaucrats.
As for the rest, you’ve obviously decided I am whatever you think it is that I am, and have gone from there.
Sorry mate, you’re wrong, I suggest you open your mind and re-read my words, fully.
Even your opinions here are a sign of the freedom that we enjoy, all of us, so why some people complain so consistently escapes me. It’s perfectly reasonable to point out problems etc, but ALL the time? We aussies have a name for those among us who do so, lol, no matter where they’re from

The Pied Piper
"What does permanency mean in centrelink speak? Why am I not understanding this?"
For any NON New Zealander migrant in australia permanency means PERMANENT RESIDENT VISA.
For new zealanders in australia there is a special agreement between Australia and New Zealand.
more info
As a New Zealander, am I eligible for Australian citizenship?
http://www.citizenship.gov.au/applying/nz-citizens/eligibility.htm

Social Security payments for New
Zealand citizens living in Australia
http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:jc1yxJ28YqUJ:www.welfarerights.org.au/Factsheets/fsssnz.doc+NEW+ZEALAND+CITIZENS+permanent+visa+australia&cd=4&hl=el&ct=clnk&gl=au

Visas for New Zealand citizens
http://www.workpermit.com/australia/new_zealand_citizen.htm

Australia needs people like you!
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

Foxy
Are you Dr Sallis? I found that you refer very often to Dr Sallis!
I send an email to them but I do not think they will answer to me! I am interested to become member(with rights, voice) of their organization they want volunteers, I want a democratic environment and I am not sure if they care at all for this things

Master fair enough, I did not understand some of what you said.
But you too did not understand me, boat people or ANY illegals are to me a problem.
No way, just as simple as that, I will ever believe hundreds of thousands come via our airports, surely you do not ?
Now forget legal migrants, while in another thread we will revisit multi Culturism, this one is about uninvited entry.
It is in my view about possibility's, just how many will come?
How many want to come?
Should we take Que jumpers? or more from the camps?
Can we look at current European troubles with illegal entry and understand its a world wide one.
If asked I would say it is my hope my culture is not buried by any other.
that we , with the best intentions do not transfer the problems of other nations to our country.
We are a better country for migration, we are going to prosper in the future from migration but we are not going to settle this problem by re settlement here of millions of other country's people.

Sigh;
I have just read the recent flurry of posts on this thread.
It seems we are all concerned about boat people numbers and although
not discussed much the numbers of those who arrive on student or
tourist visas and just disappear.

The rejection of the Australia card was a gift for illegal stayers.

If that card had been accepted with current in card chips and
encryption it would have been much easier to find them.

None of the posters here seem able to tackle the prospect of having
some millions or even tens of millions trying to come here.

Such numbers could only come by boat and anyway the airlines will
be very expensive by that time.
It can very quickly escalate if there are weak procedures in place.

Dear Antonios,

No. I am not Dr Eva Sallis - but Thank You
for the great compliment. Dr Sallis is a
published and accomplished writer, scholar,
and President of "Australians Against Racism."
She is very highly regarded both in Australia
and overseas. Being a recognized expert in her field
- is the main reason I quote her on the topic of
racism.

I referred her and her organisation to you because
you expressed an interest in developing
something similar - and I thought that they may
prove to be a useful contact for you.
Also, Dr Sallis lives in Adelaide with her husband and son,
and her organisation is based in Adelaide - which is where
you are.

Dr Sallis has written on subjects such as :
"A Fair Go For Refugees," "Australian Dream; Australian
Nighmare - Multiculturalism and Racism."

She has taken part in a Weekend of Ideas - Lecture
Series based on Racism at the Manning Clark House
in Canberra. Amnesty International Australia has
worked along with her organisation to present "Voices
of Hope," a huge nationwide schools program.
Australians Against Racism tackles racism in schools in
Australia by providing teachers, school students, parents,
with much needed material - in various mediums.

If you are seriously interested in doing something
constructive they can be contacted at the following
address:

Australians Against Racism
PO Box 107
Enfield Plaza, SA 5085

or

Email:

info@australiansagainstracism.org

Cheers.

Belly,
Below is the latest available data from the DIAC website, that I can see anyway. It clearly shows how absurd the claims made by Master are.

I do not know whether he is confused or doing it deliberately, but he changes from claims about 'illegal entrants' to 'illegal immigrants' and now back again to 'hundreds of thousands of illegal entrants'.

He also makes false claims about the ethnicity of the alleged 'illegals'.

Unless he can validate his wild claims I think he is best ignored.

I did find the information on this aspect interesting. I was wrong on at least one thing, there were only an estimated 48000 'illegals' or 'overstayers' in Aus as at 30-6-05.

http://www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/compliance/managing-the-border/

Thank you Antonios. There are a number of dates, either born on or here through, or arrived here then went back. None of which apply to me I guess.

They really push the point that unless you want particular welfare payments or a vote then Kiwi need not apply.

Okay first step seems to be to apply for this “residency” through immigration. This is what I got wrong when applying last time, I thought I already had residency (like in the form of a house).

It is a comfort that many Aussies get this confusing NZ stuff wrong too, the local school demanded the children’s visas before we could enroll them and I sat there very intelligently going “nah Kiwi’s don’t have a bit of paper saying visa”.

Stormbay seems to disagree with you and has stated that only the criminals were okay and now accepted but no more immigrants. I’ll just have to figure out a way to convince them. It is suspected that when the Maoris arrived in NZ that they migrated down from around Hawaii and picked up aboriginal females on their way past Aussie. But I have no Maori blood or I’d definitely claim kinship rights.

Maybe I could suggest that this land is huge and certainly can sustain more people comfortably than its original population. But I think it is probably how they were treated by the first settlers that have put many Aboriginals completely off the idea of even more.

Max, wow… you’re having a hell of a time lately, knuckles bro. Okay I have got stop listening to hip hop as I message.

What card Bazz?

Do not take too much notice of stormbay, its one dead end that subject.
While it is about boat people I come in to contact with over stayer's and illegal migrants in my work.
I have seen workers from south Africa bound to stay and work with one boss, bad boss too, enslaved almost and unable to get visas to stay or even work for some one half human.
Irish hard workers in that same boat unable to stay if they ask for fairness at work.
Fact is some will be upset by these folk having problems but not boat people.
In the world today in my unproven view, more than 2 million people would like to settle in the west.
If they all did that number would swell many many times.
An answer is a must it is not settling them here it has to be a better life at home what ever the costs.
Fixing this problem is in our self interest.

The Pied Piper wrote;
>What card Bazz?

Some years back the Hawke government proposed an Australia Card.
The idea was that all citizens would get one.
You would need it for Medicare, Taxation Dept, Dept of Foreign Affairs
for passport applications, Local Government and State Government
identification etc etc.
Basically anything that you would have to do with government and for
any commercial purposes such as opening bank accounts etc.

There was such a holla balue about it that they pollies did not have
the courage of their convictions and abandoned the idea.

You can see how much it would have helped the immigration dept to
sort out who was illegal and who was not.

There was a similar uproar about the photo drivers licence as it
was said to be the Australia card in disguise.

Still no one has indicated their attitude if tens of thousands or
millions turned up on our doorstep.
If we reject them mother nature will look after them.

"Still no one has indicated their attitude if tens of thousands or
millions turned up on our doorstep.If we reject them mother nature will look after them."

And if we accept that many, Mother Nature will "look after" us!

She IS, hadn't you noticed?

“Some years back the Hawke government proposed an Australia Card.
The idea was that all citizens would get one.
You would need it for Medicare, Taxation Dept, Dept of Foreign Affairs
for passport applications, Local Government and State Government
identification etc etc.
Basically anything that you would have to do with government and for
any commercial purposes such as opening bank accounts etc.”

Oh right – a few countries have talked about it aye. I’d prefer to see everyone micro-chipped with same data you mention and able to be tracked by satelite. Especially kids. Why it is wasted on dogs is beyond me.

So did everyone cry out that it was some breech of their human rights?

Yep could do it at ports and the airports etc, would be brilliant.

Yes they cried out about it pied piper.
I fought my party on it ,saw it as too much information.
We are getting it via the back door with our health card.
And Labor fought Labor over it.
Counterfeit cards would be about a week after the first issue and fool many.
Just maybe we can not stop the refugee problems of the world ,but we can try.
Every day another reason for people to leave home happens drought hunger war and even China fears mass migration if North Korea crumbles.
Nature may very well fix the problem but why wait?
Happy the thread has got away from the idea its only an Australian problem, and that Howard could fix it.

Yes Pied Piper;
Everyone including Belly complained about it being too much
info in the governments hands and against their rights.
The embedded chip was just arriving on the scene and it was the
intention to use them.
The public and trendies did not seem to understand that the government
had almost all the info anyway. It was a method of tying a particular
person standing in front of you to that information.
It was to hold all your medical information so that doctors
could access the info if you arrived in hospital unconscious and
obtain medically orientated information.

No Belly, there are techniques that cannot be bypassed when the
embedded chip is used. The lack of the Australia card is why we have
so many overstayers. There would be only those who do not work or
claim any benefits, or pay rates or rent or have a credit card or
a phone or use the internet could overstay.

Before anyone says I don't want my bank to obtain my medical info,
just don't panic they can be setup in classes so each accessor can
only see his need to know info.

I would think anyone who can get his computer on the internet would know that.

Belly what exactly has this labor government done for you, kept the happy thoughts alive and given you a never ending supply of rose tinted specs?

I’ve just watched them, in record time, enable child abuse on a massive scale without even blinking .

This card thing: See funny thing is people with nothing to hide truly hide nothing. But Bazz is right, different providers only enabled to obtain their own relevant info.

Microchips not cards though would be a lot handier. Just swipe a body part at a bank, no more panic with lost wallets. Missing persons, kidnapped kids tracked by satellite – how many go missing in Oz each year?

Refugee problems in the world? Oh please just let people move, if all nations did it they’d soon figure out to stay clear of us, nice sunsets but crap attitude to the world.

War, hunger, and drought? So if say, for example, one hua of a meteor hit Oz and the place was sinking – would you expect some other county in the world to help you out?

[fourth sever error]

“The lack of the Australia card is why we have
so many overstayers. “

Not so, it would make no difference whatsoever, unless you had police checking everyone constantly. Then you'd have to compete with fake, stolen or lost ID cards. Add system melt downs, overloading, incorrect input of information and we have the same situation as now, but with more chances and avenues of abuse.

The cash market allows illegal undetected work ability, as does the certain aspects of the Tax act. The only way you can secure information is to have computers which think independently from humans and can differentiate between lawful access and hacked, something not available currently. There's no system in the world reliable enough to allow full security over peoples information, or to stop others accessing information they shouldn't. It's a daily occurrence around the country in every department and business.

If you leave it to politicians, bureaucrats and business to organise and control it, there'd be no change to the current bureaucratic chaos and ineptness. It goes on every day and good hackers can get round anything. Safety comes from having diversified information streams which are not related, in this way only certain parts are available to hackers or moles. A soon as you collate them together, you open a big door to fraud.

There's only one way to stop boat people, turn them around, after all they transit through a number of countries which are of their own ideology, religion, culture and reasonably stable. Their only reason for coming here, is to get free housing, money, health care, the ability to continue the lifestyles which caused their problems and permission to import their primitive destabilising customs, so their outcomes can be reproduced here.

stormbay: << Their only reason for coming here, is to get free housing, money, health care, the ability to continue the lifestyles which caused their problems and permission to import their primitive destabilising customs, so their outcomes can be reproduced here. >>

There in a nutshell we have a near caricature of the bigoted misinformation and attitudes espoused by the xenophobic, selfish and heartless contingent. Absolutely no factual basis for any of it - rather a distillation of all the hateful, racist factoids that are bandied about the disenfranchised 'One Nation' racist underbelly of this country.

It's interesting to note that, in this case, it's spouted by someone who claims to have Aboriginal ancestry and who also claims to be an educated professional who provides counselling services to the mentally ill.

Like I said, it's going to be ugly. Indeed, it already is.

‘There's only one way to stop boat people, turn them around, after all they transit through a number of countries which are of their own ideology, religion, culture and reasonably stable.’
Ignoring his following statement, how do you respond to this, which is clearly true? The countries may not be exactly the same, but they would seem far closer in nature than Australia?
Anyone?

Stormbay said;
> There's no system in the world reliable enough to allow full
>security over peoples information, or to stop others accessing
>information they shouldn't. It's a daily occurrence around the >country
>in every department and business.

You obviously are not aware of what is really possible.
Proper security would mean it would take quite powerful computers
ten to twenty years to crack the ciphers on each card.
Even old ciphers like PGP would be virtually impossible to break.
The result would not be worth the effort.
Anyway by the time you did it you would look a lot older than the embedded photo.
Especially with a code in the pixel bits.
Here endith the first lesson.

CJ, I certainly don't think that Australia is so much more racist
then anywhere else in the world. Given the potpourri of nations,
I think we get on pretty good actually. I've seen far worse in
Europe, America and even Japan, China, Arabia, you name it.

Fact is people are tribal by instinct, even you. Your family comes
first, your friends next. As it happens, your friends often think
like you do, that is why they are your friends. You support your
town, state, nation, etc.

People from Muslim countries have a particular problem, virtually
all over the world, due to the very teachings of their religion,
particularly that promoted by Wahabi Islam etc. So commonly
where Islam goes, so called "racism" follows. Muslims in a way
are dammed by the teachings of their own religion. This leads
to cultural conflicts nearly everywhere, unlike say Buddhists etc.

Would I like to live in a country with a large Muslim population?
Nope, as the first thing that goes is free speech. Say a bad
word about the Koran or Mohammed and thats it, jail or whatever
follows. At least in secular nations we can say what we think
about the pope or whoever. So I don't blame Australians for being
nervous about large numbers of Muslim migrants. But then Islam
is not a race, its a religion.

Yabby, though you and I have clashed elsewhere, here I think you have been accurate, cogent, have summed up the situation clearly and intelligently.
My view is that Christianity underwent a catharsis in the Middle Ages, and now Islam appears to be approaching it’s own.
Historically speaking, we appear to be living in “interesting times”.
It’s not without the bounds of possibility that the future could see an Islamic planet, though I wouldn’t personally put odds on it

Me too yabby every word, some one should start a thread about the difference between fear of a race and fear of a religion.
Stormbay I thank you, you gave all the evidence needed to confirm my views up the thread talking to you is a dead end.
Julie, pied piper, please follow me, you your self say you do not yet understand us Aussies.
Well it is true, not yet but maybe in time, I am one of 16 kids, my mums family was thirteen, her dad fathered two family's in his life, both numbered 13 kids.
Once a long time ago, my party fought for child welfare payments, my church of birth and conservatives fought it,said it was communism.
In time the lights on the hill, my party's legendary speech of years ago, calling working classes to unite and fight, faded.
The battlers became middle class because of those who fought those battles,and forgot how they climbed out of poverty.
I have not.
Labor always has and always will be the party with a social conscience in this country.
As this thread is about uninvited migration I fail to understand why we flounder in mud about how legal migrants are treated here.
Lets cut the mustard, get to the truth, that Aussie card side track, in the time of its implementation, A fight I proudly helped win, we had Comdr 64 computers not todays, no government needed that much information.
Now Howard started the Medicare type card , Rudd is going a head with it.
It will stop not one crime.
And I challenge the idea it has anything to do with the increasing numbers of boat people.
If tomorrow we woke to hear North Korea had launched a nuclear weapon, within weeks millions of boat people would be looking for new homes.
The problem is people wanting to live a life worth living nothing less and it is never going to go away.

Belly said about the Australia card;
>And I challenge the idea it has anything to do with the increasing
numbers of boat people.

Who said it did, we were talking about visa overstayers.
It would certainly end up sending many of them home.

“There in a nutshell we have a near caricature of the bigoted misinformation and attitudes espoused by the xenophobic, selfish and heartless contingent. Absolutely no factual basis for any of it - rather a distillation of all the hateful, racist factoids that are bandied about the disenfranchised 'One Nation' racist underbelly of this country.”

Well done CJ Morgan, you've described yourself perfectly, demonstrating your complete lack of knowledge and understanding of the subject.

NGO's provide counselling and psychiatric services to refugee's, to establish their psychological states, their veracity and help them cope with life in Aus. Just about everyone goes through this process and one of the questions we ask is why they chose Australia above the places they transit through. The replies are very much the same, stating, it's a safe country, free welfare money, housing, clothing, furniture, health care, legal services and can bring their relatives here once established.

After acceptance, many become confused as they can't understand why they can't continue with their cultural norms and just pick aspects of our society which suits them. They argue it's a free country so they should be able to do what they want culturally, as 99% come from cultures suppressing women, classing them as inferior and slaves of men they demand to continue with that approach. I understand where they're coming from, but they refuse to accept it's not that way here and unacceptable. If we're going to accept refugee's it would be logical to not accept single men, which is currently 95% of boat arrivals and future problem triggers. They get very angry if you tell them they can't treat women as they wish, the problem we face is, government departments undermine our work with their idiotic bureaucratic and insane political correctness and the women suffer for it. These cowards leave women behind to fend for themselves.

I deal in realities CJ Morgan, not emotional or ideological crap. It's obvious you can't handle truth which doesn't fit your closed mind.

stormbay
I heard your theory many times, from many people! Every times a racist wants to attack aborigines he says the same thing! they drink, they abuse children, they... they.. I do not say there are not aborigines who do not do for what they blamed but to put all aborigines, to put all muslim men on the same basket and throw them to the river is unacceptable!
I do not know if you have a little bit abirigines blood in your body but if you have you had to know that the exclusion is not the solusion of the problem, that the rejection is not the solusion of the problem, that people from a different race or from a different civilization are not all 100% bad or that they have lost their ability to improve their self, to become better.
Where is your understanding, where is your sensitivity as a human being, how we can improve our relations with other civilizations and support them to become better if we block them from the begin, if we do not try first?
Do you think our civilization is without mistakes?
In realy western civilization is full of wars, genosides, blood and dirties!
I heard that some aborigines can sell their mothers for some dollars! May be you are one of them!
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

“Julie, pied piper, please follow me, you yourself say you do not yet understand us Aussies.”

Alrighty Belly baby but don’t you lead me into the woods never to be seen again. I really don’t understand, I thought we’d be so similar... years ago in Tenterfield I’d cruise in to town and drink with the locals. Great bunch of people and I spent 20 years wanteingto come back here. But now I am all grown up with grown up worries I find this Country somewhat frightening in attitude.

I thought maybe it was just the area I had landed in but it has been all echoed here.

I as usual make sense of things by how I live. Now I can have a houseful of kids, not a moment to stop and then I’ll get a call for one more – I say yes and a car will arrive, off load, leave. Okay now I am happy in my way but bloody busy. Another call – oh my god a sibling group who weren’t safe where they come from. Yeah bugger it, I’ll do it. House chocka with multi colored multi creed, multi allergies. Another call – homeless kid... what do I say? I can see a long term effort of peacemaking and cleaning up messes while getting small individuals to just be a team. You know what I’ll say.

People do want a life worth living Belly, now why do you all think you should stop them. Oldest person here is about 80? In 80 years what did they do to judge others unworthy of entry to this piece of earth?

Antonios, Stormbay is angry, he is allowed. That post was not worthy of you my friend.

And you are right, Western Civilization is in no position to look down on anyone else. But many are raised to, many of us are raised to think our way is the only way. We have always forced our ways and beliefs on others in our own countries and often in other peoples

Dear Piper,

One heck of a post - it actually brought tears
to my eyes!

Well said!

Wish I'd written it!

Stormbay,

Let's see you now back up your bigoted "beliefs" about refugees/migrants/Muslims. "PROVE" that your dogma is correct by answering the following questions and statements regarding your specific "beliefs" - - -

Stormbay's belief #1: They argue it's a free country so they should be able to do what they want culturally.

Master's question: As your belief did not include the phrase "some of them" we can only assume you mean "all" of them eh! They all just go ahead and do whatever they want culturally according to the genius Stormboy. OK, here's my question, show us the Australian surveys and statistics that show they "ALL" just "do what they want culturally".

Belief #2: They DEMAND to continue treating women as slaves.

Master's question: Show us the Australian surveys and statistics that prove that male refugees in Australia all "DEMAND THAT THEIR WOMEN BE SLAVES IN AUSTRALIA"

Belief #3: They get very angry if you tell them they can't treat women as they wish

Master's question: How do you know they all get "ANGRY" when told "you can't teat women as you wish"? Have you personally spoken to them "ALL", surveyed them "ALL"?

Stormbay, your entire post was an example of just how dogma, ideology and fear can twist a mind. It shows how easy it is to present grossly inaccurate "generalisations" under the guise of "fact". You can "believe" all your politically correct dogma and demonise refugees till the cows come home, because it takes no skill, knowledge of "fact" or brainpower to write your PC "beliefs" and "assumptions".

Beliefs and assumptions that are based on dogma, ideology and FEAR!

The Pied Piper
I did not expect from a person with aborigine blood to be against refugees and I feel bad to see one aborigine to be racisist, to be against migrants, against refugees.
I am afraid some of them are used from white supremasists for their attacks againsts asians and muslims.
Some aborigines do not like to see from where come the deadly arrows against them.
Stormbay is not ungry, it seems to me that she/he belong to aborigine's elite and forgot its people.
All elites forget and violate their people's rights, this is one from the unwriting conditions to become elite!
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

I wonder if stormbay learnt about the notion of psychological projection in his /her training? I find it appalling that someone as bigoted and prejudiced about asylum seekers as stormbay evidently is, would be involved in providing "...counselling and psychiatric services to refugee's (sic), to establish their psychological states, their veracity and help them cope with life in Aus".

If stormbay's professional claims are true, I'd be interested to know what kind of supervision strategies s/he employs to neutralise his/her evident bias when dealing with refugee clients, particularly if they happen to be Muslim.

Mind you, I'm beginning to think these appeals to anonymous professional authority by stormbay are just so much bulldust.

Antonios, like you Stormbaby (elite or not) would not be able to move through life unscathed by the attitudes of this land. Twice now I have read posts from aboriginals that do not like immigrants. From one it was about immigrants being sexist and personal circumstances and from the other just a total dismissal of immigrants being here at all and I thought a longing resonated through the post for a wish to go back to the past.

It gives a clear indication of where they live and what they live through and probably what their personal history is. Both did strike me as angry. But you know I haven’t been here long and I didn’t know there was ones that forgot their people.

I am used to Maori, if angry they do not leave a hint and usually shout it loud, not to be ignored.

You and I feel it, this ricochet, a different hurt but one of being unwanted or being told we are surplus. These threads about racism, boat people, wasting water etc reinforce it time and time again. All humans want to be accepted and all humans in another land especially want to be treated fairly, we have no way to explain to people that we want to be useful, helpful and part of the country we chose to make our home. It is hard to say to a native of any land that we want to move forward with them but it is not so easy to ignore out roots and we wish you wouldn’t insist we do.

I sit here and smile because of the children, I know no one here started this way, it was learnt and I am sure that people are just as capable of unlearning or taking a slow sliding step towards kindness as learning a waltz.

Foxy is kind, she is close to unshakeable in her approach of not doing further harm and is to be admired. Every community benefits from having a person who is unwavering in their thinking and has an innate ability to be soothing.

I have let myself get too emotional about this thread.
Twice punishing the key board I deleted my post instead of posting.
I started the thread, knew some such as Stormbay would come.
Thought some miss understandings would arise, even knew a poster I have huge respect for would be unhappy with it and me.
That poster is C J Morgan, no racist no bigot not a trouble maker.
pied piper, gee I wish we had italics, this thread is not about racism.
We Aussies have benefited from migration from the first fleet, NO I will not back down! we are one first Aussies and all, those who
dislike that can jump.
Yes my dream is an all inclusive Australia, how much better it would be if it was religion free too.
It however is about fear.
About numbers
About how many can we take? should we take? must we take? dreadful as the truth is it is about why a religion, not a nation, wants to inflict its laws on us not all that religion but far too many far too many imported bigots, can we say that? yes surely, it bigots on both sides that hold us apart.
Julie its not about culture its survival.
Question friend, I know first hand about neglected children, my family has wed into many other nationality's.
Some of them foster kids from all over and all colours some dump them on others like me.
WHY?
Why? why is our country so very full of neglected children? our culture must have changed my mum and my dad, sat at our table for 3 long days without any food so we could eat.
I sadly know many who would not.
If we open our doors? if a million come? will it feel good warm and comfortable to know while we did nothing to help we lowered our living standards.?
We can tell ourselves we are not racist but we will be hungry

An interesting study human behaviour, the right triggers allow us to see beyond facade's people hide behind, revealing confused and illogical states. Ignorance, insults, attacks, derision, forcing an issue outside it's parameters when their comfort zones are disturbed and they're out of their depth. All signs of minds uncomfortable in life and confused.

The subject article relates to boat people, not immigrants, other refugee's, residents of our country or anyone else and doesn't encompass all people coming from overseas, nor have I referred to "all people" anywhere. My comments revolve around a small number of people, there's no need to define them beyond the subject matter. Detractors get their information from the media, with no idea how people involved in this work operate on both sides, or the obstacles they face in communication and understanding.

We don't work alone, my colleagues come from all walks of life, race and religious beliefs. Many boat people don't speak much English and certainly don't understand Australian, so we are guided by those of their own understanding.

The anger is within those prone to exaggerated uninformed conclusions, making wild assumptions and press the, boost me to holier than thou bravado button. Good laugh, but this approach results in threads being hijacked into revolving door status, because people can't stick to the theme, for lack of knowledge on the subject matter and life.

Yep I'm part indigenous, undertook my studies a bit later in life when able to drag myself out of the negative existence I led. Brought up in the bush and suburbia, (boys home), done a bit of time, lived on the streets, snorted, smoked and drunk everything and served my country on active service. A proud real Australian, who cares about this country and it's realistic future. Not a bunch of flabby minded uninformed city gravitating empty heads.

Antonios,
You are the one who was asking how aboriginals felt about boat people and Stormbay, who says he is of aboriginal heritage, gave his opinion. You did not like his opinion and you make isulting remarks relating to his mother. That is pretty crook! Are you racist? Do you think all aboriginals have the same opinions. Why should they like boat people coming here? Simply because they are of darker skin than anglo-aussies? Now that is racist.

I laugh out loud at Master demanding that Stormbay PROVE his statements! Master has made all sorts of wild statements without one iouta of proof.

Belly,
I disaree, CJM thinks anyone who opposes the 'illegals' or multiculturalism or high immigration HAS to be racist and xenophobic.

It seems that Antonios, Sancho and Master all think the same as CJM.
The minute another poster puts an opinion up, these with closed minds, start insults and name calling. How dare someone express a different opinion to them!

Your ideas that we address the reasons people want to move from one country to another are long term and ones the UN has not been able to solve.

In the shorter term, the australian government will have no option but to impose far tougher deterrents if the number of illegals keep rising. The fact that the latest arrivals are nearly all young males is proof that the lure of permanent residence was a mistake by the present government.

Banjo: << CJM thinks anyone who opposes the 'illegals' or multiculturalism or high immigration HAS to be racist and xenophobic >>

Rubbish - indeed, I oppose high immigration myself. However, those like Banjo who persist in erroneously referring to asylum seekers as "illegals" are certainly both hateful and xenophobic. Most of the people who blather on in this forum against multiculturalism are either openly racist, or in denial about it.

A good example is stormbay, who wrote of asylum seekers:

<< Their only reason for coming here, is to get free housing, money, health care, the ability to continue the lifestyles which caused their problems and permission to import their primitive destabilising customs, so their outcomes can be reproduced here. >>

I note that stormbay avoided my question about what steps s/he takes as a supposedly qualified psychologist who provides assessment and counselling to asylum seekers, to avoid his/her evident prejudices about them affecting his/her practice.

If stormbay is really a psychologist, s/he would have to be a member of the Australian Psychological Association to gain registration. The APA's Code of Ethics states:

<< Ethical Standards

A.1. Justice

A.1.1. Psychologists avoid discriminating unfairly against people on the basis of age, religion, sexuality, ethnicity, gender, disability, or anyother basis proscribed by law.

A.1.2. Psychologists demonstrate an understanding of the consequences for people of unfair discrimination and stereotyping related to their age, religion, sexuality, ethnicity, gender, or disability.

A.1.3. Psychologists assist their clients to address unfair discrimination or prejudice that is directed against the clients. >>

http://www.psychology.org.au/Assets/Files/Code_Ethics_2007.pdf

How does stormbay reconcile his/her prejudice against asylum seekers, as evidenced above, with his/her professional association's Code of Ethics?

It is believed that many boat people smugglers are based in Indonesia. The Indonesian government has been highly critical of the Rudd government's soft policy towards boat people.

The compromise for a time will be for the Rudd government to pay the Indonesian government more money as a salve, however that will only work for a time while the Australian government is supposed to be working out a better policy response to boat people.

It would not be good to lose Indonesia's cooperation and other countries could follow Indonesia's lead.

The argument isn't about who should come and who should not, but about putting boat smuggling out of business and that means discouraging the clients who will pay exorbitant amounts for the service.

CJM, your questions are meaningless, they are based on your unsupported assumption of bias.
I find myself in agreement with Banjo, I have noticed how the PC brigade prefers to “play the man” rather than address the concerns involved. Abuse and denigration are no substitute for rational discussion.
And as for your claim of the use of the word “illegals” demonstrating racism, that’s ludicrous. The people who arrive without a valid visa are breaking the law, which is the common definition of the word. Not legal, get it?
As for their refugee status, the one question that isn’t often answered is..they pass through a succession of other countries on their way here, some Islamic, why are they not content to settle there, where the culture is much more akin to their own, rather than risk the boats?
Also, since they HAVE passed through relatively stable, democratic, Islamic countries, and kept going, surely they have forfeited their right to claim they have nowhere else to go?
How come they get to pick and choose if they’re so desperate?
And don’t bother telling me it’s not “legal” for them to stay there, that would be just too laughable

More unfounded uneducated insults CJ Morgan and others, record stuck is it, or par for your unstable mental state. I didn't avoid your question, if you read my posts, you may be able to understand your own confusion, but I doubt it from your replies.

We have guidelines to work to, are overseen by government bureaucrats (all unqualified or have arts degrees), when working within department requirements. In NGO's we work as a group and communally decide direction and approach. These groups always consist of at least one person of the same gender, belief and if possible origin as the client.

Prejudice, your displaying it in bucket loads CJ, as most do with little knowledge and the restraints of their ideological prisons. What's your experience in this subject, how many boat people, immigrants, asylum seekers, addicts, homeless, abused and disenfranchised people have you been associated with and worked with to help understand and cope with their situation.

My status is, MSc. (Honours Psychology), Faculty of Science, University of Melbourne. PhD (Clinical Psychology, cultural and community PTSD), Faculty of Medicine, University of Melbourne. Member of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. Member of the Australian Psychological Society (APS) Member of the Australian college of clinical psychologists ACCP.

CJ Morgan, what psychological, sociological, cultural knowledge, accepted qualifications and personal experience qualifies you to speak as an authority on this subject. How many needy confused people do you assist, how many boat people have you met and talked to. What voluntary work do you undertake to help the oppressed and mentally confused.

Banjo,
"You are the one who was asking how aboriginals" YES because I support aborigines and I stand by them!
"he is of aboriginal heritage, gave his opinion" Aborigines have suffered very hard from white australians and I can not understand and I do not expect from any one of them to be so hard against muslims, against Boat People, I am one of boat people. (with Quantas!)
Yes I have been hard to stormbay because I thing he/she forgot his people and care only for him self.
stormbay as an educated person knows very well that we (the migrants, the boat people) are the best friends of aborigines and if the governments changed behave to aborigines is of cause our interests and sensitivities for our aborigines brothers.
I found my self closer to abprigines than stormbay.
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaid

I see Stormbay has admitted, on another page, that he has "snorted, smoked and drunk everything".

Hmmmm!

Maybe that's why we have him now typing an AMAZING list of professional qualifications that he "claims" to possess.

Unfortunately for him, the standard of writing and thoughts within his posts seems to betray his "claimed" qualifications.

Everyone here can make up their own mind regarding Stormbay's "claimed" qualifications, as well as Stormbay's "claimed" aboriginal heritage.

Lol Mister, judging by your posts, we "know" that you have no
qualifications :)

Just strawman arguments, ad hominems and wild speculative claims,
without any kind of substantiated evidence.

Ah well, perhaps its just old age setting in.

“pied piper, gee I wish we had italics, this thread is not about racism.”

I know Belly but that is what they become each time. Someone always ends up saying everyone else does not belong or should get out. Maybe it just plain old meanism.

“We Aussies have benefited from migration from the first fleet, NO I will not back down! we are one first Aussies and all, those who
dislike that can jump.”

Yep, just like that. If I had chosen to make Saudi my home (not that they would have let me) I would be having the same conversations I believe.

“Julie it’s not about culture its survival.”

Too extreme Belly. Living standards… us westerners are spoilt aren’t we. Are we still talking 10,000 more right now? What are we at - 20 million?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population

And why is this country full of neglected kids… easy, the majority doesn’t care. It isn’t just here though, the world doesn’t care. But this hasn’t changed through history - what changed was that “they” only recently began making money from state wards. They are still neglected but generate an income.

Shrink: “My status is, MSc. (Honours Psychology), Faculty of Science, University of Melbourne. PhD (Clinical Psychology, cultural and community PTSD), Faculty of Medicine, University of Melbourne. Member of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. Member of the Australian Psychological Society (APS) Member of the Australian college of clinical psychologists ACCP.”

Oh see if I had this knowledge earlier I'd not have had any associated emotion to your posts, probably wouldn't be able to keep the sneer from my face though.

Antonios,
Lets make one thing quite clear. If you came here with Qantas and you passed through customs and Immigration, you came here LEGALLY, you are not one of the boat people. Boat people are attempting to cheat the system by barging in and pushing others aside. They are not concerned that others are waiting. Because they have at least enough money to bribe and buy their way they do so and push themselves on us. I do not care if they are muslim, and not all are, or if they come from the Vatican, I object to them because of their actions.

You were invited, they are not!

Like any other group, aboriginals have all sorts of opinions on all sorts of subjects. You should not assume that they dislike anglo-Aussies. I have worked with some and like all, there are all types. Some are devout christians and some are muslim, maybe some hindu or buddest. Some agree with the intervention in the NT while others do not. Same as not all Greeks agree on everything.

I have heard similar to what Stormbay has said about the 'illegals' and have no reason to doubt what he has to say. You know that, these days, all applicants for a visa, except tourists, get given a book in 30 languages that explains in detail about our society. This includes the bit about women having equal rights. The illegals do not have that book so may not really understand about out society. You can bet the smugglers will not tell them anything that could change their mind.

Perhaps you should take in what he has said and keep it in mind. Just for future reference.

Banjo
I came with permanent visa and australian high comission knew my activities and they was sure that soon or later I will involve with migrants right etc. In real the secretary encourage me to be active citizen because there are many migrants and it is better if authorities know migrants conditions.
She knew what she said but the racists, 40% of australian population prefer us silence or out from australia! I do not know where you found the anglo-Aussies I wrote white supremasists not anglo-Aussies.

The Pied Piper
I knew from his posts that he/she is an educated person with close ties with australian authorities, but also I know that he try to cut his ties with aborigines. It is seemed to me that he does not feel very good with aborigines, with hiw mother's race!

stormbay
OK! It is your right and I respect it but PLEASE try to AVOID to write as an aborigine when you do not like them, when you do not feel and behave as an aborigine.
I like the educated aborigines WHEN they do not forget their roots, WHEN they use their knowledge and position to support their people, WHEN they are not against migrants and boat people, the best friends from aborigines.
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

Banjo, the boat people are doing exactly what YOU, and any other decent Aussie would do, if you were in THEIR shoes.

The boat people are CLUTCHING AT STRAWS, "ANY" STRAW, that offers escape from their often brutal past. That's exactly what YOU would do as well, if you were trapped virtually forever like them.

For many of them, they think their ONE chance of a decent future for their families is to come here, gain residence and have their families come later. They "BELIEVE" this to be true, whether or not it is. They risk their LIVES - - - - do you, or do you not, realise this? They are DESPERATE - - -do you, or do you not realise this? They are not mean, horrible, selfish people out to queue jump for the sake of queue jumping. Indeed, for a good many of them there is NO procedure in place for them to apply to come here. For God's sake Banjo, for many of them there's barely procedures in place to feed and clothe them. But ignorant Aussies (a minority thank God) STILL think they are selfish and mean and nasty, and out to INVADE us.

The figure on this topic here started at 10,000 possible "invaders" and went up to 1,000,000 possible "invaders". The paranoid Aussie minority love their mathematics. The ignorant and fearful among are having a great ol' time spouting their paranioa.

YES - - they need to undergo stringent procedures once here to establish that they are genuine refugees. Not that you, and your ilk, would care.

Refugees, over many decades, have shown that when they become citizens they make GREAT AUSSIES. Not that you, and those of your ilk, would care.

Pied Piper quote, "Someone always ends up saying everyone else does not belong or should get out. Maybe it's just plain old meanism". You hit the nail on the head Jewels. It's not racism,it's "MEANISM". Meanism based on FEAR. Fear of difference. In other words, mean and bigoted. They're a minority. Most Aussies are MUCH better than that.

Now Julie not for a second did I intend to insult you.
You however are right, you do not yet understand the issue
No worries master does not, will not and he/she thinks we do not!
Now AS, NO CAN NOT LET IT GO, I UNDERSTAND YOU MAY NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE SAYING, BUT YOU ARE ACTING VERY OFFENSIVELY.
See got me into caps now but you now claim 40%of My country men are racists.
Tell me mate, I have asked before, why the vast differences in your posts, in composition and every thing?
You proudly in this and other threads tell us you have joined the Democrats, are you aware that horse is dead?
It is not just dead a rebirth would be bigger than a duck winning the Melbourne Cup!
And no badly treated kids are not a product of not caring, its just some people should be de sexed at birth, children deserve better.
I AS wish you well but your insults to my country and its people are too much, your understanding of boat people also points to you not understanding this debate.
Master old mate, easy there, my family has Aboriginals, and people from most country's in it, none are not welcome in my home.
You throw the word racist around too freely and in my view your self confidence is miss placed.

M. you’ve obviously have had little to do with immigrants, legal or otherwise.
They believe it’s their BEST chance, not their only one.
Asmeon, I just love the way you dictate to and belittle an indigenous person, because he doesn’t have the “correct” attitude, that has an awfully familiar ring to it.
As for your claim that immigrants and indigenous are natural friends and allies, that is ludicrous, go ask an indig’ here, you’ll have your face spat in, they hate each other, and brawl regularly.
When you get out of your comfort zone, get down and dirty, at the front-line, as I and others here have done, you will soon gain an education., and possibly some respect.
I’ve noticed that most of the people in the field are not idealistic, they don’t have time or energy for foolishness, life is too harsh for that.
They deal with the problems you claim don’t exist, and the hardest one is getting across the idea that they can’t carry on the cultural life they left behind, can’t circumcise their girls etc, but must adjust to life here, they largely get quite resentful, it can take years.
Think about this.
The boat-people don’t mysteriously appear in Indonesia, they travel there, crossing many other, often Islamic, countries, yet they keep going, and come here. If they are so desperate, why not stop there? Because it’s against the Law? Doesn’t stop them coming here though, does it?
You lot just love to sling off at anyone who disputes you, but abuse and denigration are no substitute for rational discussion. You slap the “racist” label on anyone who disagrees with you, and worse, and claim to speak for the majority, as if!.
As for your rant about fear and meanness, lol, is it paranoia if someone IS after you?
Are you wrong to be scared as the house collapses around you? People can see this nation changing rapidly, and problems blowing up, all due to an excessive immigration intake, why should they not fear for the future

Belly
The "40%of Australians are racists " is not mine but the finding from an 11 years study of Australian Universities. The study finished few months before, ask professors how they found it. I trust them!

"You proudly in this and other threads tell us you have joined the Democrats, are you aware that horse is dead?"
Belly all australians know that Labour and Liberal leaders are milionaires, that these parties are corporation's servants!
Australians are sick from labours and liberals and they try to find an other party.
Australian citizens are the big boss, they can make the democrats first and labours last, if they want it!
Do not you know that democrats are reorganizing, rebiulding the party, that they are opening the doors to australians, that they are honest, they know to listen and respect our people?
Very soon Democrats will show their power!
Do you know that in last elections for European parliament in UK, democrats was second and labours third?
I am sure the future belongs to democrats!
Women, migrants, aged people and youths are the first one who will support the democrats, very soon will follow many other groups.
Yes I am proud because I am not Labour or Liberal and I AM EVEN MORE PROUD BECAUSE I AM DEMOCRAT!
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaid

From Max we have just received a post that shows how fear and paranoia rules "some" peoples' attitudes towards refugees.

Let's see what Max has just said:

Max typed: "Is it paranoia if someone IS after you?"

Master replies: There you go, in his own words he actually believes they (refugees) are "after us". PARANOIA rules Max's thinking.

Max typed: "You slap the racist label on anyone who disagrees with you".

Master replies: Umm Maxie dear boy - - - if you engage your brain for once you'll see that just 2 posts above your last post I wrote "It's not racism". Now Max, do you know the meaning of the word "not"? It seems you don't. Maybe you should seek advice from a patient and understanding acquaintance on the meaning of "It's NOT racism". Your lack of ability to both read and comprehend, as displayed by some of your recent posts on various subjects, is very funny.

Max typed: "Are you wrong to be scared as the house collapses around you?"

Master replies: Max is scared because he fears Australia is collapsing around him. That's pure PARANOIA and FEAR. Utterly ILLOGICAL thinking. And very, very sad actually - - -because poor ol' Max believes it.

Max typed, "this nation changing rapidly, and problems blowing up, "all" due to an excessive "immigration" intake".

Master replies: AHHH, now Maxie's "real" motivation shows through. It's not just refugees he fears and loathes, it MIGRANTS. And he believes "ALL", I repeat, "ALL" changes and problems in Australia are due to an excessive immigration intake. He thinks MIGRANTS are to blame. * * MIGRANTS * *. Not just refugees, but MIGRANTS.

His comments are an ode to PARANOIA and ILLOGICAL FEAR.

Gee Maxie, you should maybe do a bit of extra 'thinking' before you type. Foot in mouth Maxie. So funny, yet so sad.

Master
Maximillion worry for the big changes in the synthesis of australian population, he is afraid that one day he will have to live whithougt race privileges, that one day all bastard migrants,( including me) will be enouph strong to claim and find their rights.
I understand his worries BUT it is very late for him, even if we stop the migration, if we stop all refugees, even then, very soon the migrants, the non anglo will be the majority in australia of cause their high berth rates.
THERE IS NO WAY TO REVERSE THE HISTORY!
I feel sorry for Maximillion, he is not so bad as he seem, I think he realized the australian reality last years and since then he is very scary!
Do not worry my good friend we (migrants) are not canibals, we will respect and protect your rights!
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaid

The simplistic, childish, abusive responses above demonstate exactly my point.
And to then claim to be able to know what I think or feel is consistent too.
You’ll again notice no reasoned discussion of any points, no refutation or questioning, no supporting rationale, nada, just sneers and denigration.
I rest my case

Max, the reason why you're treated this way is because you offer NO REASONING WHATSOEVER to back up what is essentially "paranoia".

If you can logically prove that Australia is "blowing up" and it's "ALL" (your word) due to migration, you could be treated seriously.

If you could logically prove migrants are "after you", you could be treated seriously.

If you could logically prove that I think you're "racist", then you could be treated seriously on the "racist" charge.

If you could logically prove the Australian "house is collapsing" because of migration, then you could be treated seriously.

Max, one CAN'T debate seriously, or effectively, against "PARANOIA".

Your comments show a paranoia against, and fear of, MIGRANTS and REFUGEES.

NO amount of logic will change your mind, unless you open your heart and mind to the suffering of others.

It's basically NOT racism, it's just plain old "MEANISM".

“Maybe that's why we have him now typing an AMAZING list of professional qualifications that he "claims" to possess.”

Master, I claim two normal qualifications and membership of three professional organisations, no different to thousands of others. To an empty shell, it would be "AMAZING". You can fit a lot in when you don't get educated until your 30's and have trouble fitting the box provided. Amazingly there's millions of others worldwide in the same situation.

“Indeed, for a good many of them there is NO procedure in place for them to apply to come here.”

NGO, UN or welfare organisations have access to, can direct to, or organise UN refugee application status anywhere they operate in the world. It's how this country gets it's deserving bona-fide refugee's. Boat people pay thousands of dollars for a boat, transit, accommodation and living awaiting embarkation. Those resources could support their families whilst awaiting refugee classification in one of the safe countries they come through. Most are opportunist queue jumpers, so don't have a hope of attaining refugee status or any other visa, or they'd fly in and over stay. They use resources needed to assist genuine refugee's get here, that's my sole consideration for wanting them stopped. Real refugee's don't make demands, they're so happy to be here, a little confused, yet eager to fit in and a pleasure to assist.

Antonios, you're not a refugee or boat person and like others here, think you know more about my ancestry than me. You know nothing about us, like others you ignorantly contrive what you want to believe represents Australian indigenous. Declaring you know how we write, express, communicate and how we should act. You and others express a symptomatic response of racist bigotry, which can be predicted by a lack of communicative interaction with people of other races.

Belly referring to ASymeonakis, "Tell me mate, I have asked before, why the vast differences in your posts, in composition and every thing?"

This is a reasonable question which has been avoided by 'AS'. I happened across a 2008 post by ASymeonakis and the English expression was excellent, yet in these recent posts there is a lot of variability.

How is this possible unless a group of people are using 'AS' as a cover for their uninformed, baseless and derogatory rants against Australia and its citizens?

See, more assumptions, you’re response is again based on your abusive assessments, nothing else.
You pick on individual words and phrases, ever heard of metaphor and allusion? Look it up. Put simply, I disagree with your outlook, so YOU define it as racist fear etc, and base all your abuse on that
Open my heart and mind to the suffering of others? I’ve spent half a life-time doing just that, and my door, and my arms, what about you? Ever put your life where your mouth is? Risk anything to help another? Or do you prefer to keep such things at arms length, where you can ignore the realities and spout your belief in your utter infallibility on all subjects.
You have been consistent in all threads since arriving, you post, then attack anyone who espouses a different view . You seem unable to brook differing outlooks, which rather begs the question…why are you here?
A Forum is a place to discuss like reasonable adults, to share views and experiences, in short, to communicate. If one is determined to attack any difference of opinion on sight, to dictate the “truth”, to not listen to others in a fair and reasonable manner, again I ask.. why come here?
And please, if all your going to say is more of the same abuse, do us both a favour, and don’t bother, it’s getting tedious.

The penny drops - stormbay is either an angry, burnt-out clinical psychologist who posts his bigoted claptrap about asylum seekers anonymously because s/he is well aware that his/her comments here contravene the APS (not APA - my bad) Code of Ethics, or (more likely) is a frootloop who has been reading the qualifications on the wall of his/her counsellor's office.

Either way, I think this person is being less than honest on the issue of asylum seekers who arrive by boat. I'm interested in the degree of vitriol and classic projection that stormbay directs towards me because I have the temerity to point out that comments about 'boat people' such as this:

<< Their only reason for coming here, is to get free housing, money, health care, the ability to continue the lifestyles which caused their problems and permission to import their primitive destabilising customs, so their outcomes can be reproduced here. >>

are not only clearly prejudiced, but are plainly contrary to the Code of Ethics of the professional association of which s/he purports to be a member.

I'm accused by stormbay of prejudice - against what or whom, may I ask? This supposed mental health professional also diagnoses me anonymously in an Internet forum of having an unspecified "unstable mental state", simply because I point out their own prejudice and bigotry. S/he also accuses others of bigotry and racism, while prattling on about "races" as if they actually exist.

It may well be the case that stormbay is indeed some kind of professional gone bad, but I think it's more likely that s/he is either a client or junior colleague of the person whose qualifications s/he claims anonymously to have attained.

“Now Julie not for a second did I intend to insult you.
You however are right, you do not yet understand the issue”

Belly you just said you didn’t intend to insult me and then I suspect you actually leapt straight in and insulted me. So far it is only a suspicion so I’m gonna go easy on you.

My daughter got a job a while ago in a little shop that sold handbags and stuff – owned by an Asian couple. The only criteria for the job was too “look” Australian. Long blonde hair and blue eyes and she’s in. Says more about the customers than the owners aye.

If you had a magic wand, what would you do with this issue of people wanting a life here?

Max, Banjo? First wave of 10,000 – arriving next week. What would make it work in this country?

Now I get the practical perceived concerns, water, infrastructure, crap attitude in 40% of citizens but what has the “she’ll be right” mantra been hiding?

Anotnios... I have to admit I have my own ‘ism. Shrinkism, Stormbay could have been any colour or creed or combination on this earth and I would have happily respected his opinion on anything and supported his right to have one but he is an alien breed that damages other humans. They are another section of this society that is not policed or held accountable for the damage they do.

Pied Piper,
Have you considered that the shop owners are making an effort to increase sales by having staff that can speak 'Strine' especially if they themselves do not speak english well. I give callers from Indian call centres short shrift. For no other reason that I cannot understand them. There was a TV detective show recently that I could not understand either. It was Scotish and I had to give that the flick.

In relation to you question. It would not work at all. I would reopen all detention centres and get army to guard. Implement urgent laws to deter any more coming. Like do away with the permanent resident visa for illegals and charge them for the time in detention. If the boats came from Indonesia I would send them back there. The first hint of incorrect info being given to our staff would result in cancelled application for asylum.

We have to make it unattractive to come and not worth the effort or risk/cost. They have no right to force themselves on us!

Pied piper,
I forgot to ask. What would you do and how would you make it work?

Seemingly we have ceased to offer constructive suggestions on how to effectively manage the issue of boat people arriving on our shores.

Once winter arrives and with recent rains, Australians tend to forget that this nation’s present carrying capacity is unsustainable and already ecologically overloaded.

Our government policies to grow population despite environmental degradation, will eventually produce exactly the same conditions in rich countries as exist in third world countries.

Nevertheless, we have a duty to honour our humanitarian obligations but we need to learn from other countries which are floundering with the influx of illegal refugees.

Refugee ghettoes are springing up all over Europe. Afghans, Eritreans, Somalis, Sudanese, Iranians, Nigerians and Kurds etc are sleeping rough all over Europe.

It’s been estimated that tens of thousands of refugees have died over the years under tragic circumstances as they attempted to migrate from Africa to Europe.

Three boats trying to make their way to Italy in March this year, capsized with 300 – 500 people still missing. Hundreds of Rohingya (Burmese Muslim) refugees are feared dead after being pushed back into the sea during January, by Thai authorities, according to human rights activists based in Thailand.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics advises our population swelled by 389,000 in the year to September 2008. NSW now has over 7 million people with the highest rate of people fleeing the state to reside elsewhere in the nation. May figures for the nation revealed 660,000 are now unemployed – up nearly 40% from last May.

Either we drastically reduce our immigration programme including the return of economic refugees to their homelands, to accommodate a burgeoning increase of genuine refugees, persecuted in their own countries, or we all go down the gurgler together in the not too distant future.

The Greens think they have the solution: stop Australians 'breeding' and take in all comers.

From Government numbers I saw some time ago which did not take into account recent record migration targets, around a quarter of Australia's population is from a non-English speaking background (NESB) and 55% of new births are to the same group. This being so, maybe the Greens' next 'initiative' could be de-sexing migrants and refugees on arrival so even more can come.

“... I give callers from Indian call centres short shrift. For no other reason that I cannot understand them. There was a TV detective show recently that I could not understand either. It was Scotish and I had to give that the flick.”

What a surprise you insular freak.

“We have to make it unattractive to come and not worth the effort or risk/cost. They have no right to force themselves on us!”

Well then, send them all laptops and set up OLO with this thread as a homepage as it's about as unattractive as it gets.

“I forgot to ask. What would you do and how would you make it work?”

Based on your response I would tell them to paddle screaming for NZ if they wanted to be treated any better than cattle.

Banjo I am so sorry.

I kind of write my first response that comes to mind and then usually write another one that is the one I am going to post and just then I cut and pasted the wrong one to you.

Really sorry and feel like a complete idiot now if it's any consulation.

stormbay
1. I put the question about aborigines because I support aborigines and I wanted to grab the opportunity and promote their interests.
Your posts was not helpfull at all, in realy they was the worst posts I could expect from an aborigine. I decided to push you closer to aborigines to remind you your responsibilities to aborigines people.
2. Your posts was hard against boat people and very sensitive for their wifes, for the muslim women.
As you know in australia we have a huge problem with aborigines children. Indigenous children are six times as likely to be abused as non-indigenous children, child abuse among indigenous children have more than doubled from 16 per 1000 children in 1990-2000 to 35 per 1000 in 2007-2008. I do not understand why you are so sensitive about muslim women and you did do anything from this forum to promote the rights from the litle, lovely abused aborigines children, for me the abuse of the litle aborigines children is number one national problem and WE MUST PROTECT THE CHILDREN AND OUR NAME INTERNATIONALY.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/nickbryant/

3."They get very angry if you tell them they can't treat women as they wish," Do you think only boat muslims behave with this way or all muslim men? If all muslim men then what do you suggest, to expel all muslims? If you realy interested for muslim women then do not understand that for them is many times better to live in australia than in their countries?
4. From your posts I found that you are against Greens, Democrats, Labours and Liberals I do not know your opinion about One Nation, How can you promote aborigines interests when you are against all political parties, even the most friendly of them as Democrats or Greens?
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

I have to wonder if the boot was on the other foot? If for some reason our country was a place dangerous to our children and lots of people sought refuge overseas.Luckily it is very unlikly.As an island we have no land borders-an advantage: and despite the truth or not that the Japanese were going to invade and settle it's excess population by force here,it could be possible in the future that the billons in an Asian coutry might try to do just that.Lets count ourselves to be compassionate enough to welcome genuine refugees and allow their children to grow up and defend their adopted land.Would that we could swap some of "crims" and bludgers for hard-working immigrants.

DIPLOMAN

It is a horrifying thought, isn't it?

From my reading of the first post there was no question of disallowing genuine refugees. All countries jealously guard their sovereign right to choose who they allow across their borders and who they allow to settle permanently.

What is at issue is how to deter and hopefully prevent people smuggling and there are agents for people smuggling in Australia as well as in nearby countries.

Were any of us in the same situation where we have to flee our country it would be doubtful if we would be inclined to pay a hefty fee to a people smuggler to bypass countries that were English speaking with a culture similar to our own.

Australia is not alone in this, we are obliged to act in accord with other countries and the problems are world-wide. I am pleased if economic refugees an undesirables are weeded out and especially the many Tamil Tigers and other dangerous groups who are out to find another country for refuge from authorities.

Returning to the central theme, what is to be done to prevent or deter people smuggling?

Antonios Symeonakis,

Why do you continually duck the question posed by Belly?

"Tell me mate, I have asked before, why the vast differences in your posts, in composition and every thing?"

Cornflower I went and had a nosey and it seems that passion changes Antonios’s messages slightly but seems more like comfort. This one:

“Only a very small number of the victims inform the Human Rights Commission for their victimization and they do it when it is very late. The whole system needs deep, huge changes if we want to bring justice and stop the victimization of innocent people.
When 75% of Australian people say we are racists they know what they say, but In really I am not sure if the Federal and State Governments understand the size of the race discrimination in Australia
Antonios Symeonakis Adelaide Posted by ASymeonakis, Tuesday, 22 January 2008 7:14:48 PM"

As he got more comfortable posting he has speed up a bit? How is he supposed to answer?

Paranoid bunch aren’t ya.[smile]

Is it luck the Dutch left again? It was bad luck for the convicts and they didn't even want to be here. Why are you all wetting your pants at the thought of sharing?

In Christchurch when we had whole subburbs of Asians my only thought around groups like "White Supremists" protesting was how up themselves they were to think they had more right because they had been there that whole generation or the one before. Even if their family had arrived on the first four ships, how dare they.

Terrible they have to sneak in, that's bloody awful that humans have to smuggle their way in to try and have a life worth living.

Banjo
You asked me if migrants -refugees are natural aliens with aborigines.
No I do not mean it. Simple I say that:
1. We migrants and refugees hava nothing to do with all the bad things which hapened in the past against aborigines. We can see aborigines as they are. For you, for anglo ausie the things are not so simple, so easy. You know that something terible hapened with aborigines but it not ease to accept that this happened from your parents, grandparents etc. You know that your grandparents was lovely, quite persons, they cared and loved their children and grandchildren, it is not ease to accept the truth. We had the same problem with the Greek fighters for indepentands from Otoman Turks. In one city they made a big crime but every one run to cover them, even the poets! Our Neutrality give us the chance to create better relations with aborigines than you. Even if you are more honest and fair with aborigines from us, even then the aborigines will trust us more than you, they always will suspect that you take your grand, grand fathers side!
2.We, migrants -refugees, have a problem with racists, studies show that 35% of us think that they are victims of race discrimination in their workplace, if you add the discrimination in public sector then you have about 50% of us (migrants -refugees) to feel as victims of race discrimination! All this people feel a sympathy to aborigines, to the big victims of race discrimination.
3. You know the history, the british empire was the bigest one ever exist. Many migrants in australia had same experiences with aborigines in their countries from the same nation! They feel closer to aborigines.
I hope I answered to your question!
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

Pied piper,
Nothing to apologise for. I took no offence at anything you said. I was surprised thet you were surprised by my not understanding the english spoken by Indians or the Scotish. One advantage of getting older is that if there is something I don't want to do, I don't have to. Including watching or listening to shows or people I do not understand and/or like. TV adverts are out and I revere the remote.

Insular is probably an apt description. I avoid travel at peak times and holiday periods and did work hard for our creature comforts which I enjoy. I want our grandkids to be able to do the same on their retirement. I would hate to think that we left Aus to them in a state like many countries endure with riots and bloodshed. Europe and UK are in a mess because of uncontroled migration, which you seem to advocate.

If you perceive OLO as being unattractive, you need to try some other blogs to see how some talk to each other. Try muslim village to see how some view Aus.

If we could pass some of the 10,000 off to NZ that would be great, but I really would like a bit more detailed response as to what you would do and how it would work, etc. By the way, more Kiwis arrive here than any other group, so what is wrong over there?

To even ask the question, you must have had some thoughts.

Dear Antonios,

I've got a question for you ...

You keep referring in your posts to -
youself as a 'migrant,' yet you've
been in your current job (you told us)
for sixteen years - and I presume you've
been in Australia for a bit longer than
that.

How long will it take, how many
years that is - before you'll no longer
consider yourself a migrant?

Australia like the US is a nation of
'migrants,' migrants are part of its national
identity. If you go back into anyone's ancestry
you'll find that their people came from somewhere
else, settled here and became part of this country.

Also,instead of making general sweeping statements,
you really need to be more specific, give facts,
not emotions. Making generalisations about people
does not honour you - nor give you credibility.
Not every "Anglo," is a racist,
the same as not every "migrant,"
is tolerant, and compassionate

Cornflower
"Why do you continually duck the question posed by Belly?" I answered to this question,
I will answer one more time to you and if Belly ask me again please copy this answer ang give it to Belly.
2. I live alone, no children, no wife, ALONE! I am working 6 days per week, I am busy.
I see my children usual on weekends. They do not know anything for my posts. I AM NOT IDIOT, THEY NEVER HEARD ANYTHING ABOUT RACE DISCRIMINATION, ABOUT MY VICTIMIZATION. Both live with their anglo saxon friends.
3. My english is not good, I do not have any program for spelling on this computer but when I have time I use my second computer with plenty programs.
4. Many times when I have time I cut and past from many websites.
5.Usualy my posts are small and simple, the words I use are simple words, IN REALY I CAN NOT WRITE WHAT I WANT BUT THEY ARE BETER FROM NOTHING!
6.In my post I do not use the same style, some times I am hard and some times soft, some times I am far in front and other times back, I try to pull my readers when I am front or to push them fordward when I am back.
7. Always I want to have an open door or window even with my hardest opponent, always I try to biuld a bridge even if everything seemed terible.
8. I try to be unpredictible and my moves are unorthodox, many times when I seem agry in realy I am very calm and other times when I seem soft may be I am angry.
9. I AM AN HONEST PERSON AND I DO NOT LIKE TO HURT ANY ONE.
10.SURE I AM A FIGHTER AGAINST RACE DISCRIMINATION AND ANY KIND OF DISCRIMINATION GENERALY.
Are you happy Cornflower? I am not good but I am not the worst one..

Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

TPP, AS

Did the same AS write this in 2008?

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=1812

Sheesh, everyone is busy attacking everyone, the key points are
being missed yet once again!

Fact is that there are tens of millions of refugees, Australia cannot
solve all their problems, that is the reality.

How many refugees we take a year, is open for political discussion.
So go on people, put a number on it. 30'000 a year perhaps?

Next question, how do we select them fairly? Who can pay the most
bribes is clearly not a fair system, for what about those refugees,
like women, children, who don't have two cents to their name?

The 1951 UN convention was set up for post war Europe, its a long
time out of date and its time that it was updated. Its become a great
loophole for economic refugees who prefer to the Western cushy
lifestyle, to that in third world countries.

Australia is free to withdraw and change its terms of ageement,
but our politicians lack the testicles to promote a fair system.
For instance, all our refugee intake could come from refugee
camps etc, not by clappity boat race decision.

PP, clearly there are some innovative and entrepreneurial kids
in NZ! They could teach Aussie kids a thing of two :)

http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=2&ContentID=153074

.

Dear Yabby,

Thanks for the link -
Here's another called
'Virtual Success.'

http://www.entrepreneur.com/startingabusiness/teenstartups/article195554.html

I see that the same old canards are being trotted out by those who wish to demonise asylum seekers who come to Australia by boat. For the record:

1. The vast majority of 'boat people' who came to Australia under the Howard regime were subsequently found to be bona fide refugees, i.e. they weren't economic immigrants in disguise.

2. Malaysia and Indonesia, unlike Australia, are not signatories to the Refugee Convention, which means that they are not required under International Law to provide asylum to refugees. Further, asylum seekers who pass through those countries are often treated appallingly by them - the fact that they are predominantly Muslim countries makes little difference in their attitude to refugees, i.e. asylum seekers aren't 'country shoppers' because they don't remain in Malaysia or Indonesia.

3. John Howard didn't stop the boat people from trying to reach Australia. They kept coming, in gradually decreasing numbers in line with a temporary decline in the various conflicts from which they had to flee. Similar trends were recorded in every country where refugees seek asylum. The recent reported increase in refugee and potential asylum seeker numbers is a product of continuing and increased conflict, and has little to nothing to do with the Rudd government's adoption of a more humane approach to asylum seekers.

While I'm aware that some people here are deeply prejudiced against 'boat people' and are predisposed to believe any factoid that supports their bigotry, in a discussion like this it's apparently necessary to remind them of these well-established facts.

I also see that Turnbull's in the news tonight demanding that Rudd does more to stop boat people reaching Australia, exactly as I predicted early in the thread. How despicable.

C J Morgan

To cut directly to the chase, you would welcome all boats and immediately integrate the passengers into society while you were doing checks (you support checks?).

Then you would do what with those who were not bona fide refugees? What appeal rights and where would they live in the interim? If appeals extended beyond (say) a year would you still require them to leave?

What practical steps would you take to deter people smuggling, or is that pointless and unprincipled as you seem to be saying?

Banjo I’m still sorry. Wonder if anyone else does it… does have a real calming effect. Oh my god – some things I have said to Col, if only he knew.

“If we could pass some of the 10,000 off to NZ that would be great, but I really would like a bit more detailed response as to what you would do and how it would work, etc. By the way, more Kiwis arrive here than any other group, so what is wrong over there? “

It’s bloody cold.

“To even ask the question, you must have had some thoughts.”

Yeah I did but although I can run a busy multicultural household I doubt that equates to running a country. I just sort stuff when it gets crowded, gather more supplies, work a bit harder, give the little people jobs and roles in the household. Peer pressure has a lot to do with how they learn and the ones that have been here already teach the newbie’s, I demand teamwork and encourage kindness and contact.

As PM of my domain I don’t tolerate breaking of rules and no I don’t care how cute you are, I want the little people to learn and share knowledge. I welcome new people with open arms although I don’t think I’m like how the Dutch messed up; I will respect who you are and where you come from but this is my house with my rules and the same rules apply to everyone.

I blither on aye. At a practical Ievel I agree with some others. Let the people come and slow down birth rates until stabilized. I asked you guys figuring you’d know more about what would make it work than me.

Yabby’s idea would stop smuggling – big official once a year ship. Train them and everything on the voyage.

Cornflower if you look two messages under Antonios's (the one you put a link to) he is either in more of a hurry or cross (although might be different computer like he said).

The above post from Stormbay, the person who has claimed the fake professional qualifications, shows he has now stooped to a new low level of threats and behaviour.

Not content with his previous admission that the has " snorted, smoked and drunk everything" - - -

he's now - - -

seeking the address of another poster so he can send his friends around to "chat". Then he wrote that "better still" he'll just give his friends the poster's name, because they're good at tracking down "malicious pigs".

I guess Stormbay want's to spend more time in prison.

Stormbay is OBVIOUSLY NOT a professional person, as displayed by his language in his previous posts.

He's now resorted to THREATS - - - which is the modus operandi of the uneducated and unintelligent (our prisons are full of such people).

Probably the only "genuine" statement he's written here is he's "snorted, smoked and drunk everything".

Nice to see Cornflower addressing the topic.

<< ...you would welcome all boats and immediately integrate the passengers into society while you were doing checks (you support checks?). >>

We should admit asylum seekers who arrive in Australian territory regardless of their mode of travel, and release them into the community while their bona fides are checked.

<< Then you would do what with those who were not bona fide refugees? What appeal rights and where would they live in the interim? If appeals extended beyond (say) a year would you still require them to leave? >>

Those who seek asylum and are found not to be bona fide refugees should be deported to their country of citizenship. They should have the same rights of appeal as currently exist, and I would have no objection to them being detained until their appeals are finalised. If their appeals are unsuccessful, they should be deported regardless of how long it takes.

<< What practical steps would you take to deter people smuggling, or is that pointless and unprincipled as you seem to be saying? >>

I think that the only way to deter people smuggling is to enlist via diplomacy the cooperation of the authorities in the countries in which they operate. I understand that's exactly what Rudd and his government are up to right now.

stormbay:

<< I'll send my cousins round to chat to you about selling their mothers. Better still I'll just give them your name, we're good at tracking down malicious pigs. >>

<< I ignore sheep kissers, it's the smell and constant baa baa babble, it goes with the need for gumboots when kneeling behind them.
>>

<< ...it's clear you've no experience nor understanding of the subject >>

What is becoming increasingly clear is that you are a bigoted, fraudulent thug. Nobody with the education and qualifications that you claim would use such threats and language, even anonymously.

Game's up, old chap.

Threats to track people down and attack them in their homes?

This may be the most low and cowardly comment I've ever seen on OLO.

Can we have some sort of medal for stormbay?

BINGO C J Morgan.

A rational, short, simple and reasoned response regarding all points.

But I'm afraid it's just way, way, way too complex a response for the bigots and fear mongers amongst us to understand. Fear of migrants and refugees seems to be a passion for a "minority" who believe in "Fortress Australia".
Just a "minority", who think they're a majority.

CJM

Thanks for your views, maybe a discussion on another thread one day when the static clears.

stormbay
You do not understand me!! Read it again " I like the educated aborigines WHEN they do not forget their roots, WHEN they use their knowledge and position to support their people, ..."= I try to push you closer to aborigines
"I found my self closer to abprigines than stormbay"=I think I am interested for aborigines more than stormbay!
I heard that some aborigines can sell their mothers for some dollars! May be you are one of them!=Do not forget aborigines of cause your professional success and money! Here mother means all aborigines! Do not bertray them!
"Stormbay is not ungry, it seems to me that she/he belong to aborigine's elite and forgot its people" THAT IS THE MEANING" STROMBAY BELONG TO ABORIGINE 'S ELITE AND FORGOT ITS PEOPLE!"
You had to thanks me because I support aborigines and NOT TO THREAT ME!
The following is from an other aborigine who knows what is doing,

---Thank YOU too my Brother Antonios Symeonakis!
Posted by Rainier, Thursday, 10 April 2008 10:12:51 PM---
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=1658&page=0#32369

<“I am one of boat people. (with Quantas!)” > do not you understand that I mean I feel as one from the boat people but I came with QUANTAS!
A high educated person and you do not understand what I mean and why I was hard to you?
I expected the threat to come from white supremasists and it comes from ...aborigines, from the people I support!
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

“Pied piper, I ignore sheep kissers, it's the smell and constant baa baa babble, it goes with the need for gumboots when kneeling behind them.”

Typical Shrink.

At least for a second there I distracted you enough so that you weren’t actively destroying children’s lives with your unique blend of assumptions based on formulas followed rather than letting any reality get in the way.

How do you slither in to positions where you can, on a whim, destroy a small soul for income?

CJ – I think this person is a thug but I wouldn’t put it past a shrink to act in this way.

Oh me gawd Yabby, the little shite. Looks like mum warmed to the idea. Ew.

The Pied Piper
I wrote in an other post that many times I try to support people and at the end I have problems with some of them because they misunderstand me!
NO I HAVE BIGGER PROBLEMS!

"I wrote in an other post that many times I try to support people and at the end I have problems with some of them because they misunderstand me!
NO I HAVE BIGGER PROBLEMS!"

What's the problem Antonios?

The Pied Piper
Nothing! Thank you!

“Nothing! Thank you!”

Antonios you drive me nuts my friend.

If you are talking about the silly shrink then don’t worry about the gutless fool.

Hey be happy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHb0V9B5f6g no idea what the words are but it sounded nice.

CJ:

“1. The vast majority of 'boat people' who came to Australia under the Howard regime were subsequently found to be bona fide refugees, i.e. they weren't economic immigrants in disguise.”

They were found to be refugees under a much more liberal interpretation of the 1951 Convention than was used for offshore refugees. Only the most needy refugees from Australia’s various posts were accepted. If the same level of interpretation had been applied, a very small portion of onshore asylum seekers would have been accepted.

As onshore asylum seekers displaced desperately needy people that were due to come here under our formal immigration program, they should have been subjected to the same interpretation of the criteria.

Once onshore asylum seekers were here in mainland detention centres (or on Christmas I or Nauru), it was understandably preferable to accommodate all of them except those that were obviously not refugees or had a significant criminal record or whatever. But that doesn’t necessarily mean some of them weren’t more akin to economic refugees than to the desperately needy people that we accommodated (or who were consequently not accommodated) via our formal immigration program.

“2. Malaysia and Indonesia, unlike Australia, are not signatories to the Refugee Convention, which means that they are not required under International Law to provide asylum to refugees…”

So, can we really expect Rudd’s diplomacy to do the trick in these countries? What’s their interest in not sending refugees straight on to Oz? What’s the ability or the resolve the government to prevent this?

“asylum seekers aren't 'country shoppers' because they don't remain in Malaysia or Indonesia.”

Oh yes they are!! Because they are only going to M or I for the express purpose of getting to Oz!

continued

“3. John Howard didn't stop the boat people from trying to reach Australia…”

Yes he did, almost entirely. From a very ominous build-up at the time of the Tampa incident to a tiny trickle. The easing of international conflicts was no doubt a factor. But as far as Oz was concerned, Howard’s policy was the overwhelming factor in the arrival rate.

“The recent reported increase in refugee and potential asylum seeker numbers is a product of continuing and increased conflict, and has little to nothing to do with the Rudd government's adoption of a more humane approach to asylum seekers.”

How completely bonkers was it for Rudd to ease the policy at the same time that we saw increasing conflicts?? A strong border-protection policy absolutely needed to remain in place. We had reached the situation where just about no one was left in detention and no one was on the way. So the policy was hardly applying to anyone! It didn’t matter if it was seen as being slightly less humane than Rudd’s policy.

If a slightly more humane policy means that a lot more people mobilise and get caught up in the messy asylum-seeking refugee-determination fracas, then effectively we are seeing a considerable deterioration of humaneness, or at least of humaneness on part of the Australian government.

“I also see that Turnbull's in the news tonight demanding that Rudd does more to stop boat people reaching Australia, exactly as I predicted early in the thread. How despicable.”

Huh? What exactly are you branding as despicable?

Good questions Cornflower.

And good to see CJ actually address them directly and systematically. That’s more than he’s done for some of the questions that I’ve asked him on this topic on other threads, despite my repeated attempts.

His answer to your last question is particularly telling:

“I think that the only way to deter people smuggling is to enlist via diplomacy the cooperation of the authorities in the countries in which they operate. I understand that's exactly what Rudd and his government are up to right now.”

This is the ONLY way of deterring people smuggling or asylum seeking?? Oh please! If asylum seekers and people smugglers see Australia as a soft touch, then we’ll get thousands of people heading our way, end of story. And if all arrivals are allowed to just live in mainstream society straight up, then the ‘soft touch’ message will spread around the world like wildfire.

Come on CJ, the detention regime in Australia evolved out of necessity, not because of some innate hatred of refugees. Stopping the arrival of onshore asylum seekers from reaching large numbers is of the utmost importance. It has GOT to be kept under tight control, ideally reduced to zero and absolutely kept to a very low level.

Sure, diplomacy is part of a solution. But until we can be totally confident that no asylum seekers are going to be assisted by other countries to get to Australia, then we MUST maintain a vigorous deterrence regime.

The idea of letting asylum seekers move freely in our society is fraught with problems, as has been borne out in Europe. Abscondment, assistance to evade authorities by sympathisers, the cost to the police and taxpayer to find absconders, the resultant hardening of community attitudes against asylum seekers ..and politicians, illegal workers taking jobs of citizens of the host country, etc, etc.

There is no way that we should we be letting asylum seekers enter mainstream society until they have been found to be genuine refugees.

“I see that the same old canards are being trotted out by those who wish to demonise” any one who questions the “bona fides” of those masquerading as ”asylum seekers”.

They are claiming :
1. “The vast majority of 'boat people' who came to Australia… were subsequently found to be bona fide refugees …(not) economic immigrants in disguise !
---a) These demonisers would know better if they put away their comic books and got out into the real world. For if they took this daring move, they would be surprised to learn that:
---Some of these ‘refugees’ have been through --processing-- three or four times and keep coming back till they find an administration gullible enough buy their –well rehearsed -- stories.
---b) Many ‘refugees’ shortly after gaining residency return to their ‘much feared’ former homelands for rest, recreation or recruitment of further ‘refugees’.

They have also claimed that :
2. “Malaysia and Indonesia, don’t provide “asylum”.
---a) But what do you call it if someone --resides-- in Malaysia or Indonesia for seven years or more –if, not asylum?
---b) That “asylum seekers aren't 'country shoppers'” …but, what do you call it if they pass-by, or through, some 20 countries– and not once seek residency status – perhaps the social welfare system in the transit countries wasn’t to their liking?

And there is this:
3. “John Howard didn't stop the boat people…(it was) a temporary decline in the various conflicts”.
---Neither is correct, the recent increase is likely to have more to do with bleeding heart idiots who have -- outed-- Australia as a soft target .

While I'm aware that some people here may have a deep, unmet psychological need to emulate Errol Flynn and play Robin Hood ( or even, Maid Marian) . I entreat them if they have such fantasies , to satisfy them through their own charitable works – after all, charity, traditionally arose from individual sacrifice & generosity. Rather than, seeking to assuage such cravings by writing blank cheques willy-nilly on behalf of the community.

Refugees’ rights
1. protection from being forcibly returned to a country where they would be at risk of serious human rights abuses
2. protection from discrimination
3. the right to identity and travel documents
4.the rights to work, housing and education
5. protection from penalties for illegal entry
6. the right to freedom of movement
7.are not returned to a country where they would be at risk of serious human rights abuses
8.are not prohibited from entering a country to seek asylum
9.have access to fair procedures to determine whether they are refugees, and to lawyers, interpreters and organizations that can help them
10. have access to UNHCR
11. are not unlawfully detained
12. have basic economic, social and cultural rights, for example, to education and health care
13. are not separated from their families

Who is an asylum-seeker?
An asylum-seeker is someone who has left their country in search of international protection, and is waiting for a state or the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, to decide on their claim for refugee status. While they are waiting for a final decision on their status, they cannot be returned to their country of origin.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/POL33/001/2007/en/d511d89e-d3c4-11dd-8743-d305bea2b2c7/pol330012007en.html

According to Amnesty International In 2007 there was an estimated 12 million refugees and asylum-seekers in the world – about 0.2 per million,
Now there are an estimated 14.2 refugees in the world, roughly 0.21% of the world’s population.
Refugees and asylum-seekers are going to developed countries, arount to 50 countries of the world, if we spread them equaly to all 50 countries then we will have 284.000 refugees per country, .
Logicaly Australia should be the number one country, worldwide in asylum seekers, as she is number one in migrants.
But AUSTRALIA DOES NOT UNDERTAKE ITS INTERNATIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES! In 2001-02 we had 8400 asylum seeker applicants, while in 2004-05 the number of applications had fallen to around 3200.
It is seemed to me that many australians care only for their personal benefits and nothing else and they press with many ways for less asylum seekers.
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

The Pied Piper
Thank you for the link and your friendship, I am sorry if yesterday I drived you nuts, it was not into my intension!
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

Ludwig, while I think we agree that Australia should reduce or eliminate its net population growth for ecological reasons, on the issue of asylum seekers we are evidently poles apart. I suspect it's mostly because I'm a greenie who's also a humanist with a libertarian streak, while you seem to be a greenie who's basically misanthropic with an authoritarian streak.

My position is that we should limit Australia's population as much as is possible with respect to environmental and economic constraints, human rights and our obligations under International Law. Yours seems to be that we should limit Australia's population by making it really, really difiicult for bona fide refugees to come to Australia by boat.

You don't seem to get anywhere near as excited about the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who reside in Australia currently, having flown in and overstayed their visas. While you claim to be opposed to the 'Skilled Migration' programme that brings in hundreds of thousands more, you don't appear to devote much commentary to it here - nor even the idiotic 'Baby Bonus'.

Nope - it's a few thousand asylum seekers who may try and come to Australia by boat who are the problem.

I think that the Australian Government is legally and morally obligated to accept as many genuine refugees as we can reasonably accommodate. One thing that is certain is that the numbers of bona fide refugees who seek to come here will only increase in coming years, due to conflict and (most likely) climate change. We need to address this reality with a set of policies and protocols that go somewhere beyond building a metaphorical fence around Australia and keeping as many poor brown people out as we can.

As for Turnbull being despicable - in this case it's because he shamelessly blew the dog-whistle that I predicted early in the thread.

And you responded very well - not to mention those whose company you keep when it comes to 'boat people'. Shame on you all.

Thanks for the reply CJ. Here’s another triple post in response…for you reading pleasure! ( :>)

“…on the issue of asylum seekers we are evidently poles apart. I suspect it's mostly because I'm a greenie who's also a humanist with a libertarian streak, while you seem to be a greenie who's basically misanthropic with an authoritarian streak.”

Now now, you know full well after all the time that we’ve been exchanging views on this forum that I’m not at all misanthropic. It’s just a tad dishonest and scurrilous to throw up that attempted sleight.

Authoritarian? Yes I am inasmuch as I believe in strong governance and a well-respected rule of law. What would you call yourself when it comes to effectively law and governance?

“Yours [position] seems to be that we should limit Australia's population by making it really, really difficult for bona fide refugees to come to Australia by boat.”

No. We need to stem population growth by reducing immigration and disincentivising births, rather than incentivising them as per the baby bonus. Onshore refugee arrivals are only distantly related to population growth and sustainability, unless of course the numbers become very high...in the order of many thousands per year.

My position is all about achieving tight control of our borders, which effectively means shutting down the onshore movement of asylum seekers….and having a very good input into refugee issues without having to deal with the ongoing really ugly, expensive, socially disruptive, humanitarianly difficult issue of asylum seekers.

Sure, that would be unfortunate for those who would head our way with genuine refugee claims. But it seems to me that you CJ and several others on OLO have a strong bias towards onshore refugees compared to offshore refugees in camps in Africa and elsewhere, that are for the most part considerably needier of resettlement in Oz. I don’t understand why you seem to think that those that have mobilised and paid for the services of people smugglers are more deserving than those that are brought here from refugee camps.

continued

And as for visa overstayers, well I’m authoritarian well and truly. It should be absolutely clamped down on. I don’t understand why this is so difficult or unpalatable. What is your position CJ? Are you less authoritarian about this?

“While you claim to be opposed to the 'Skilled Migration' programme that brings in hundreds of thousands more, you don't appear to devote much commentary to it here - nor even the idiotic 'Baby Bonus'.”

Crikey, I’ve expressed my disgust at the BB and opposition to SM how many times on this forum? Only about 50 000 !! I don’t need to restate it on absolutely every thread that is remotely related to the subject! (:>|

“I think that the Australian Government is legally and morally obligated to accept as many genuine refugees as we can reasonably accommodate.”

Yes! The key word being ‘reasonably’.

That takes me back to the sorts of questions that I’ve asked you a number times before and have not received answers;

How can we accommodate sporadic arrivals or a small stream of onshore refugees and treat them as well as you would wish them to be treated without risking opening the ‘floodgates’? How on earth do we regulate this or have any real control over it, without attempting to shut it right down or very strongly disincentivise it? How do we strongly discourage this movement without tying up those involved in detention centres, etc? How do we treat them even a little more humanely without being seen as a soft touch target country? What would the point be of striving to allow a very small number to come here via this route? Why wouldn’t we comprehensively close the proverbial gate instead?

continued

The answer to me is very straightforward – strive to shut it right down. Process those who insist on coming here in offshore detention centres. Maintain the message around the world that Australia is definitely not a soft target. Concentrate on offshore refugees...and on programs that address refugee issues at their sources. Considerably boost our international aid effort accordingly. Boost the total refugee intake to 25 000 per annum, while at the same time reducing our total immigration intake to net zero, which would be around 30 000. Strive directly for population stabilisation and sustainability and a much-improved international humanitarian effort all at the same time.

“One thing that is certain is that the numbers of bona fide refugees who seek to come here will only increase in coming years…”

Yes! So for goodness sake, we’ve got to make sure that we are not going to put ourselves in a position where we are subjected to a very large and ongoing number of boats full of desperate people. We absolutely MUST strive to shut this movement down.

A-bet-each-way Rudd seems to realise this, despite his stuuupid weakening of Howard’s border-protection policy. Thank goodness for small mercies!

“And you responded very well - not to mention those whose company you keep when it comes to 'boat people'. Shame on you all.”

Beats me what you are trying to say here. Is this a compliment or a belt over the back of the head… or both? ( :>/

The issue of whether Australia should want, or should not want, refugees and migrants, in the FINAL analysis resides in one's PERSONAL OUTLOOK and PHILOSOPHIES: I realise this because I've spent an entire lifetime acutely observing human nature.

THAT'S WHY all the myriad of facts, statistics, figures and history presented by ALL sides of the debate are MOOT points.

No matter what someone else thinks or proves, if a person believes that refugees and migration are "bad" for Australia then THEY WILL CONTINUE TO THINK THAT WAY NO MATTER WHAT

And - - -

No matter what someone else thinks or proves, if a person believes that refugees and migration are "good" for Australia then THEY WILL CONTINUE TO THINK THAT WAY NO MATTER WHAT.

FACT: Not ONE person is going to change their mind on the refugee/migration subject no matter what anyone writes on these pages. THAT'S A FACT!

It all comes down to one's "philosophical" attitude.

It's my "opinion" and philosophy, that in times of crisis ALL countries (not just 1st world countries) have a humanitarian duty to help displaced persons. The "help" includes accepting them within the country, and ALL countries need to share the load. It's an ABSOLUTE FURPHY that Australia can't take more people due to ecological reasons, and I'm an old greenie. When I hear that sort of rubbish I INSTANTLY know the speaker bases his/her objection to refugees and migration on PHILOSOPHICAL and/or POLITICAL grounds. In other words, just plain old MEANISM.

It NEVER ceases to amaze me the depth of inhumanity within people, the world over. If someone's in need, they should be helped.

The objection to refugees and migration is usually just based on a political and/or philosophical outlook that has plain old MEANISM and/or FEAR OF DIFFERENCE as it's core values.

It is seemed that we have two type of greenies, the humanists and non humanists.

Non humanist greenies.
The hard core of greenies do not care very much for humans but mainly for the environment, for them humans are one other kind of the animals and its value is not bigger from a pet, in realy their value is lower from a pet as they destroy the environment and create problems on the earth. They are ready for hard ways to protect the environment. I thing some of them would be happy if we decide to reduce the number of human population if we can find the right spray! For them human needs, human pain, human solidarity are not important and they prefer to leave the nature to make its selection between humans. Social sensitivity and responsibility, social justice and international law have small value and they can be ignored if this is supportive to environment. They are against migration, refugees and many births.

Humanist Greenies. These creatures are very sensitive on environment issues, they fight for environment protection but they do not forget that they are humans, that they are part of human society and they are ready to undertake their responsibilities and support people in needs, migrants, refugees, aged people or children. They have developed social sensitivites and responsibilities, developed international sensitivities and responsibilities. THEY ARE GOOD POLITICIANS, GOOD PERSONS BUT PEOPLE ARE CONFUSED FROM THE GREENIES AS BETWEEN THEM THERE ARE SO BIG DIFFERENTS.
If I had to choice between CJ Morgan and Ludwig I will choice 100% CJ Morgan and I will not choice Ludwig.
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

“It's an ABSOLUTE FURPHY that Australia can't take more people due to ecological reasons, and I'm an old greenie.”

Master, how can an old greenie hold this view?

I’m an old greenie from way back, as ex-president of the North Queensland Conservation Council (1992-3) and two other greenie NGO groups, and former state candidate for the Qld Greens (1995). Full of pseudogreenies all those groups are! So many years put into that sort of thing. What an extraordinary waste of time. Now I don’t have a bar of it.

Excuse me for thinking that you cannot conceptualise sustainability. That is; the balance between people and the pressures on resources and environment that they create, and the health of the environment and the ongoing ability for the resource base to provide us with a decent quality of life.

I mean, OF COURSE Australia can’t take too many more people for ecological reasons and for reasons pertaining to the continuance of a decent quality of life for us humans.

“Not ONE person is going to change their mind on the refugee/migration subject no matter what anyone writes on these pages. THAT'S A FACT!”

Hmmm. You are probably pretty well right about people not changing their views on refugees and migrants, if they have well-developed views. But most people don’t. In fact, the vast majority are somewhere between totally apathetic and rudimentarily interested….and are wide open to developing views on this subject.

Many others have developed views after only hearing one side of the story. If they read opposing views on OLO, in newspapers or hear them in the media, or best of all, hear them in social conversation, then many of them would be wide open to modifying their views.

So I’ve got to disagree with your “THAT’S A FACT” hard and fast views.

What do you think of my desired outlook on our national approach to refugees, asylum seekers, immigrants and sustainability, as expressed in my last post, in particular my desire to greatly boost our refugee intake and input into refugee issues while greatly reducing our total immigration intake?

Ludwig asked:
"How can we accommodate refugees without opening the floodgates?"

Master replies:
"Floodgates" is a meaningless, emotive description based on your PHILOSOPHY. The solution to any worldwide refugee situation is achieved by a coordinated effort by ALL countries (not just 1st world countries) to share the load. This means, in times of crisis, ALL countries will be accepting large amounts of refugees. All this requires cooperation and organisation between all countries. This will not happen currently, because there's too many people like Ludwig who reject the basic compassion and will required. In my opinion, it WILL happen one day. When? I don't know. Maybe when the world grows up and understands that it's better not to have an "us vs them" world, but instead an "us AND them" world. But currently, fear and paranoia rules. And in Ludwig's case, his philosophy rules.

Ludwig asked, "How do we regulate this (the arrival of refugees) without shutting it down or strongly disincentivise it?"

Master replies:
See my reply to your question above.

Ludwig asked, "How do we strongly discourage this movement without tying up those involved in detention centres?"

Master replies:
See my reply to your question above.

Ludwig asked, "How do we treat them even a little more humanely without being seen as a soft touch target country?"

Master replies:
See my reply to your question above.

Ludwig asked, "What would be the point of striving to allow a very small number to come here via this route?"

Master replies:
It's called caring about your fellow human beings. Having a "heart". Acting honourably. Not having your brain ruled by Meanism.

Ludwig asked, "Why wouldn't we comprehensively close the proverbial gate instead?"

Master replies:
Because this country has a humanitarian programme and accepts at least "some" refugees. Our country, like ALL countries, needs to accept many more. Why? Because the world needs to help displaced people. It's in the world's best interests to do so. Every country's best interests. Australia's best interests. And yes Ludwig - - - -

EVEN "YOUR" BEST INTERESTS. Although you don't realise it, or understand it

*The solution to any worldwide refugee situation is achieved by a coordinated effort by ALL countries (not just 1st world countries) to share the load.*

Ho ho ho, you dreamer you. All countries can't agree on anything,
as everyone backs self interest. You still don't understand the
laws of nature.

* Although you don't realise it, or understand it*

Nope Mister, its your flawed philosophy that is the problem here,
for you don't understand basic Darwinian evolution theory.

As Darwin noted, far more of any species will created, then can
ever survive, for in the end, they will run out of resources.

What you are promoting is that people can live with impunity.
Produce as many kids as they want, somebody else will feed them,
wreck their environment, then just move elsewhere, somebody will
make space. Its the tragedy of the commons which will eventually
sink humanity, unless people are responsible for their actions.

In your opinion, they are clearly not.

The Age newspaper had an interesting article
last Saturday (July 4th, 2009, p. 15) written
by Tom Allard in Kuala Lumpur.
"Malaysia's traffickers prey on refugees."

The UNHCR deputy representative in Malaysia,
Henrik Nordentoft tells us in that article
that there are "great difficulties" for asylum
seekers in Malaysia and that the boats intercepted
recently along the route between Malaysia,
Indonesia, and Australia are "probably the tip
of the iceberg."

"You realise that there is desperation," Mr
Nordentoft says.

Allard tells us that Mr Nordentoft points to
the global dimensions of the problem.
"While asylum claims rose 28 per cent last year
and there were 42 million displaced people and
more than 16 million officially recognised asylum
seekers. Only 67,000 people were resettled.

With such a large refugee population, when you see
the resettlement numbers, you can see it's a
challenge to find solutions."

I agree with Master and CJ when they both
make a case for asylum seekers. People who have
been forced to flee their countries because of
war, famine and persecution need our help.
And coming from an ancestry of Displaced People,
I can identify with the plight of refugees. As I
understand it,
Ludwig completely agrees with our commitment to humanitarian
treaties. And, from what I understand, all
Ludwig is suggesting is that we restrict the
numbers of ordinary immigrants - so that we can take
in more refugees. Perhaps that is something that
needs to be considered - as far as sustainability is
concerned.

Well at least Ludwig's not a totally lost cause, unlike our Yabby. But, Ludwig's suggestion of accepting 25,000 refugees while at the same time prohibiting migration makes no sense. We benefit from BOTH refugees AND migration. We take in refugees from a humanitarian point of view and we take migrants because they provide necessary skill bases that this country requires (plus other reasons). BOTH categories make GREAT citizens.

Ludwig "believes" Australia's ecology can't sustain any more people. That's utterly ludicrous of course. With SUSTAINABLE RESOURCE MANAGEMENT (which we've traditionally neglected in the past, although improvements are slowly happening) this country, as indeed most countries, can support a GREAT MANY MORE people. If we continue to indefinitely employ past practices (which will NOT happen, out of necessity) then Ludwig is correct about sustainability - - - but that indefinite use of past bad practices will NOT happen: Ludwig seems to not understand that the country is "changing". ALL countries will be forced, out of necessity, to live a sustainable existence. Right in my neighbourhood in this vast outback of Australia, there's a massive wind farm happening, providing 800 jobs and HUGE energy generation. Just 10 years ago a wind farm would have been laughed at by the authorities here. Times change. Properly managed, Australia can support a greatly increased population, despite what the fear mongers and anti migration people "believe".

Yabby writes that countries can't agree on anything. Ok then Yabbs, I guess that's a good excuse for giving up, putting it in the too hard basket and to show "zero compassion" for displaced persons. Sounds like you're very much a part of the "me, me, me" generations.

Ol' Yabbs wrote, "what you are promoting is that people can produce as many kids as they want and wreck the environment"

Master replies: Ok, where did I write "people can produce as many kids as they want" and where did I write that I promote the wrecking of the environment? Yabbs, if you want to be taken seriously you'll have to do rather better than that piece of junk writing"

*Yabby writes that countries can't agree on anything. Ok then Yabbs, I guess that's a good excuse for giving up, putting it in the too hard basket and to show "zero compassion" for displaced persons.*

Not at all Mister, its about being a realist and not a friggin
dreamer. Fact is the global population has gone from 1 billion
to 6 billion, heading for 9 billion, on the back of cheap oil and
plentiful oil. Its been highly unsustainable. Just look at the
global fishing situation to see how good people are at agreeing
on things.

I have stated before that its up to all Australians to put a figure
on how many refugees a year to take, but its hardly going to make
a difference. With global population increasing at 20 million
every 90 days, even if we take 20 million, thats only 90 days
worth of human breeding.

Given that Australia right now can't manage to live with 20
million sustainably, before you rush in more people, get the first
part right.

*Ok, where did I write "people can produce as many kids as they want" and where did I write that I promote the wrecking of the environment?*

Its nature old fella. You take them, they will breed them around
the world, from Afghanistan, to Iraq to third world Africa. Look
at their birth rates. And where people go, they wreck the
environment. That is the reality of our species.

Ludwig: << Onshore refugee arrivals are only distantly related to population growth and sustainability >>

So what's your real beef then? I don't agree that 'border security' is a virtue in and of itself - indeed, I think that the only justification for the maintenance of borders in an increasingly globalised world is to protect ecosystems and biosecurity.

I'm aware that my position is contradictory - but that, after all, is the nature of sustainable human development on a planet with finite resources. Ultimately, we humans have to stop breeding like rabbits globally and learn to live sustainably within our environment, and it seem to me that adopting a 'Fortress Australia' approach can only stave off the crunch temporarily at best, and indeed invite conflict at worst.

This may well mean that our standard of living becomes more modest - at least in material terms - in wealthy countries like Australia, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Of course there are some who selfishly demand that they should have plasma TVs and holiday houses while millions around the planet scratch for a living, but that position is ultimately morally and economically untenable.

I disagree with Master about the human carrying capacity of Australia's environment - I don't agree that it's infinite. Indeed, under our current profligate rates of production and consumption we're probably exceeding it if we are to be sustainable. However, if our individual consumption levels were to return to the far more modest standards of only 50 years ago then perhaps we could sustain considerably more people.

Certainly, we should stop encouraging economic immigrants and invest much more in providing those who are forced to seek refuge here (not to mention those who are here already or are yet to be born) with the kinds of skills that we need if we are to create a sustainable economy.

Coming from the land I am greatly impressed by the view that Australia can support a greatly increased population through 'sustainable resource management'. It's all easy peasy too, just flood the country with migrants until the population is forced into sustainability.

Cripes, why didn't those dills in Canberra not realise it was all so simple? It was as though a new sun had appeared on the horizon!

Hold on, why do I have this image of a watermelon, y'know, green on the outside and red on the inside?

Of course with the Greens' record of solving bushfire risk and 'managing' the environment (eyes wide shut and it will all go away) we can have full confidence (sic) in their plans for population control by creating the flood of incomers that ensures later population and resource sustainability (- or maybe something else entirely, like slums and boatloads of refugees heading back out of Australia).

Still, while we are waiting for the all-cleansing human flood, what we should be doing in the interim about the 10% of Australians living below the poverty line, or those Gen Y's who can't afford houses, or the kids and older workers who can't get jobs despite retraining, or the 40% of Australians who can't afford the dentist or.....And how do you convince Aussies girls to keep their legs crossed so that only the preferred 'Over Theres' can fill the boats with their progeny?

Maybe if everyone had friends like Senator Bob Brown, who put out the begging bowl and was richly rewarded, the whole world could live happily ever after (er, could they also have Bob's overgenerous parliamentary superannuation too?).

Then again, maybe if the focus was more on education, the right of women to birth control and abortion on demand, other countries might have some chance of sustainability too. Let's not be too greedy and save all of the sustainability (and women's rights) for ourselves.

Foxy:“Ludwig is suggesting is that we restrict the
numbers of ordinary immigrants - so that we can take
in more refugees. Perhaps that is something that
needs to be considered - as far as sustainability is
concerned.”

[GULP]

Yabby:“Given that Australia right now can't manage to live with 20
million sustainably, before you rush in more people, get the first
part right.”

Why not? An incredible amount of money is wasted, I have seen that in a very short amount of time. Applauding anything that claims millions is being thrown at a problem with the expectation it is The solution. Like all western countries it is always what you have not who you are. Yabby I read something ages ago and you were saying that people don’t want to work here, or where you are there weren’t people that would work in factories and that is why work was going overseas at the time – is it still like this?

Hey I was wondering…. Can’t find it… but compared to population, how many people work in government jobs here – in comparison to other countries?

Thanks Master for addressing my questions, well…sort of addressing them.

You are making a fundamental mistake in assuming that those who are against large-scale and uncontrolled movement of asylum seekers into Australia are necessarily mean or lacking in compassion. Some might be. I certainly am not, as are many.

You addressed my question; <How can we accommodate refugees without opening the floodgates?>

But with respect, you completely failed to answer it. It is patently obvious what I mean by ‘floodgates’. It seems to me that you don’t even want to think about the consequences of a large and continuous stream of onshore asylum seekers coming our way….or that we would be very hard-pressed indeed to accommodate a small number in the manner that you would like without spurring a very much larger movement.

So unfortunately, you didn’t answer any of the questions that you addressed.

May I also say that if you are going to put statements in quotation marks, then they need to be accurate quotes.

“Ludwig ‘believes’ Australia's ecology can't sustain any more people. That's utterly ludicrous of course.”

You’ve really got to get past this belief Master. Or maybe it is something that you know isn’t true, but you feel the need to keep asserting in very strong terms because it is just so totally at odds with your desire to import large numbers of people in an ongoing manner. Perhaps your compassion for refugees is blinding you to the imperative of achieving a balance between undertaking a reasonable humanitarian effort and protecting our own future wellbeing in Australia.

“Ludwig seems to not understand that the country is ‘changing’ ”.

Of course it is changing, largely because of the pressure that we are exerting on unsustainable resources, not least water and oil. A whole lot of the changes that are being made are directed towards alternative energy sources, improved efficiencies and better technologies. But these improvements are largely per-capita improvements. And with the number of ‘capitas’ constantly and rapidly increasing, there is little or no net gain!

Even worse than this, the apparently green initiatives that are happening around us are in effect facilitating more people being supported by the same stressed resources. So the net effect is negative for the environment, resource base and our future wellbeing.

When we see these good initiatives happening in conjunction with population stabilisation then we’ll be on the right track. But until then, we’ll keeping heading straight towards an enormous economic, environmental and social upheaval…..after which we just might learn how important sustainability is.

“Properly managed, Australia can support a greatly increased population.”

Possibly. But until we can be assured that this continent can support this population increase and that the necessary resource management, rates of consumption and improved technologies are in place, one of the most important aspects of good management is to gear our population quickly towards a stable level. There’s no two ways about that – population stabilisation is a fundamental part of the good management of our society and natural environment.

How we do not have enouph water when one of our big problems is the rise of the sea water level ?
From one side we do not know what to do with the increased quantity of the water in oceans and from the other side we are crying for not enouph water!
Today the cost for water from normal supply sources is $200 per acre-foot while the cost of desalinizing water is about $650 per acre foot.
Desalination technology is improving and costs are falling. We can use solar power to desalinizy the water of ocean not only to cover our increased needs in drinking water but also to sent it to our deserts and create usable farmlands!
Dream! Dream australian deserts as farmlands and forests! So much water in oceans so much free energy and we are crying for our future and we block our refugee brothers to stay in our country!
COME IN, COME MY GOOD REFUGEES, THIS CUNTRY IS OURS AND YOURS, ALL TEMPORARY VISITORS ON THIS PLANET!

A CONSISTENT 13 gallons to 16 gallons of absolutely pure water every day, essentially anywhere on Earth with a system which involves a total cost of around $300 to $400!
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

“Ludwig: << Onshore refugee arrivals are only distantly related to population growth and sustainability >>

So what’s your beef then?”

CJ, the full quote should have been;

‘Onshore refugee arrivals are only distantly related to population growth and sustainability, unless of course the numbers become very high...in the order of many thousands per year.’

My beef is multifaceted.

Firstly, if you get your wish about just letting all arrivals move freely in open society, then we’ll most definitely get an enormous influx to the extent that it would be significant in terms of population growth.

Secondly, even small numbers have over the last decade created a whole lot of tension in Australian society, a whole lot of political unrest, a huge taxpayer cost, etc. Without Howard’s strong intervention in 2001, numbers would have been much greater and the costs and tensions much greater as well.

Thirdly, if we are subjected to an increased rate of arrivals in an ongoing manner, these sorts of tensions will continue and attitudes will harden towards refugees, including offshore refugees and those that we have accepted and that live amongst Australian citizens. Our overall humanitarian effort could suffer greatly. Whereas if we were to concentrate on helping the most needy refugees in their home countries or camps across the border from their homes, and directed our international aid effort at the source issues of refugeeism, then the Australian public and hence government would probably be considerably more amenable to supporting an increase in this sort of humanitarian effort.

continued

Fourthly, it is just impossible as far as I can see, and CJ you seem to agree by way of not answering my repeated questions on this point; that we can accommodate a reasonably small or moderate number of asylum seekers in a highly humanitarian manner without spurring an enormous number of arrivals.

Fifthly, given this point, it makes eminent sense to curtail the onshore route completely and concentrate our efforts on our offshore refugee programs and other international aid programs.

Sixthly, if things are going to become a whole lot worse in terms of refugee movements, then we really do need to have our borders under control.

“I'm aware that my position is contradictory...”

A very frank statement! Surely if you have conflicting interests, then you have to sort out how to balance them so that they don’t conflict. You can’t just go on maintaining a contradictory position.

.
Pied Piper;

“Foxy:’Ludwig is suggesting is that we restrict the
numbers of ordinary immigrants - so that we can take
in more refugees. Perhaps that is something that
needs to be considered - as far as sustainability is
concerned.’

[GULP]”

Er um….what exactly do you mean?

“[GULP]

Er um….what exactly do you mean?”

I don’t feel stable, nah don’t take it like that… I mean any day I suspect Aussie being Aussie might say “Kiwi’s out!”. The views I see here don’t really separate immigrant from refugee and my own personal feelings don’t either. People are people and you should help them.

But I get a definite vibe about how in Australia no one is accepted unless a shackle dragger at one level or off the first fleet.

Do you think maybe all are worthy… do you think maybe humans should react to humans in a humanitarian way.

Antonios, You are right. At some point people might know this. No, it wont matter, you are right my friend.

Ludwig, you seem to be missing my point. Australia's "inevitable" increased refugee intake and increased immigration will NOT happen in "isolation". The problem of displaced people will become so great that the developed nations will eventually be "forced", via necessity, to share the load. They will recognise that it's in THEIR interests to share the load. A STABLE world is in THEIR interests.

Over the past 20 or so years nations have become MUCH more aware of sustainability issues. In Australia, even my party the Liberals now recognise that our land needs to be managed on a sustainable basis (although there's still a few diminishing doubters amongst them), and thank God John Howard is gone.

Worldwide, in the coming decades, industry will be FORCED to change past practices via the force of "NECESSITY". The entire world is currently on that journey, and it will take decades to complete. Eventually there will be MUCH freer movement of people between countries, and the benefits will be obvious.

There's currently doomsday merchants on every street corner in our great country. Many of them see refugees and migrants as the "enemy". But I see a bright and wonderful future for this country and the rest of the world. A future based on sustainable farming and manufacturing practices, a future that WILL eventually be non reliant on coal, oil and nuclear power, out of "necessity". And the current polluting and destructive industry will attempt to fight on till the inevitable bitter end for them, but the clever businesses and corporations will change and adopt the new technology and practices when they realise sustainability is for "THEIR" long term benefit.

With changed practices, time and more open mindedness our country will eventually embrace refugees and migration as never before. Our population will soar, and because current resources are finite, newer technologies will lead the way to a SUSTAINABLE and bright future.

And the current doomsday merchants will be really p i s s e d off!

Ludwig's finally coming clean:

<< ...even small numbers have over the last decade created a whole lot of tension in Australian society, a whole lot of political unrest, a huge taxpayer cost, etc. >>

Only because a significant proportion of the Australian electorate (including Ludwig and the various racists and xenophobes with whom he allies himself on this issue) have been receptive to the blatant dog-whistling engaged in by the Howard regime to attract the racist vote back from One Nation.

The rest of Ludwig's fears about asylum seekers consist entirely of supposition - this would have happened, that might come to pass, other stuff could occur etc etc. Ludwig parrots the expressed fears of the xenophobes who claim to be terrified that the humane treatment of a few thousand bona fide refugees who may arrive by boat will signal to the world that Australia is a 'soft touch', or some such paranoia.

I agree that it would be far preferable for all concerned if Australian Immigration authorities had some kind of viable system in place offshore to process applications from asylum seekers. While that is the case in parts of Africa, no such facilities currently exist for refugees from Iraq, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka etc, who end up falling prey to people smugglers. If there were, the people smugglers would go out of business.

Given that there is no "queue" for these people, Australia is legally and morally bound to accept bona fide refugees from such places, no matter how they get here.

Lastly, there is always an inherent contradiction between the interests of humans and that of the environment. In Australia, the environment has been going downhill since 1788, caused directly by the activities of people who've settled here from elsewhere. It always seems supremely selfish to me when the comparatively wealthy beneficiaries of previous settlement claim that there's no room for those invariably poor and brown people who have been displaced from there homes by no fault of their own.

The Pied Piper
My friend I in an other thread I found you are speaking for goald coast, i think it is beter for you if stay in sydney, do not worry for the gutless!
I wrote in an other thread some thouhts for the need of a world government, including the problem of refugees, migrants etc Foxy said Bravo!Brilliantly said!Your best posts yet.http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2915&page=2
I am an internationalist.
Do not worry we will not leave them to expell you! You are the best australians!
I said? you if you think a web site will be usefull to you I can register a domain name for you, tell me what name you prefer and if you prefer it com, org, net etc I can find a server to host it, I can install the scripts, advice to you how to write the pages and sent the password to you, change it and the side is yours. Do not worry I will promote and optimize your web site, I am very good on it.
Your business-services do not need high expences, it is more public relations and promotion. For my business I need at least $100.000 per year rent, employee, ads, and my income from my work and the sunday market is not more than $65.000 per year and I am afraid to take the risk, although I have huge stock of products.(I buy bulk from auctions).
Be happy my friend
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

Antonios

Promoting unlimited immigration will push human populations beyond the ability of Australia’s land and water to sustain them. You appear to regard yourself as an expert on Australia’s immigration programme, without knowledge of the country’s state of the environment.

Australia has the lowest precipitation of any of the world’s inhabited continents. Seventy percent of Australia is either arid or semi arid land.

You flippantly state that Australia can continue plundering another resource for its water needs – the ocean. However, the marine environment, essential for the eight countries with coastlines on the waterway in the Arabian (or Persian) Gulf which depend on desalination, is in jeopardy.

As much as 64.9 tonnes of antiscalant, 23.7 tonnes of chlorine and almost 300kg of copper are pumped back into the Arabian Gulf daily from desalination plants around the region.

Salinity is more than 50 per cent higher than the average and the brine produced by desalination is dumped back in the ocean (as in Australia.) The long-term consequences could be profound for the Gulf region according to experts.

Coastal water temperatures are rising and salinity is more than 50 per cent higher than the average - predominantly the result of massive increases in the volume of desalinated water production to meet the demands of a growing population.

Bear in mind that the country of your birth, has a population of fewer than eleven million and some 94 per cent are Greek. Between 2001 – 2007, Greece deported some 240,000 illegal immigrants. During May there were violent protests by Muslim migrants where Police resorted to using tear gas.

Many men, women and children are trafficked to and within Greece for the purpose of sex exploitation or forced labour. Last year, Greece was suspended from U.N. carbon trading in an unprecedented punishment for violating greenhouse gas reporting rules. Concerns are regularly raised about Greece’s pollution and wetlands and non-absorption of EU funding for environmental projects.

You're extremely critical of the country which granted you residency Antonios - “forty percent of Australians are racist, bullies, etc etc.”

Australia or Greece Antonios – your choice.

Hey Antonios, I’m on the Central Coast in NSW – about two hours drive north of Sydney. I read your message about an international government and how space is our only “out” as it were and that we could easily become extinct in our galaxy.

I think we have a lot of learning to do before we can leave this planet though. Maybe through the universe only populations that have learnt how to behave do get to a point where they can co-operate with each other enough for enable any off planet migration.

What business do you want to create? I thank you for the offer and may yet take you up on it – certainly the most generous proposal I have been given and it made my day.

Protagoras I don’t think that’s fair and it doesn’t make sense to me to pick another country and point out what they’re doing wrong or differently.

Is your post suggesting that once here we should not complain about anything but cruise along being grateful we were allowed in?

"Protagoras I don’t think that’s fair and it doesn’t make sense to me to pick another country and point out what they’re doing wrong or differently."

Pied Piper - the country I picked out is Antonios' country of birth.

Why is it unfair?

Protagoras
"That is no reason for Australian citizens to go on a guilt trip simply because they live in a peaceful nation and have a superior standard of living"
I supposed you are number one humanist on the earth!
“forty percent of Australians are racist, bullies, etc etc.” You know of cause that this is not mine but the finding of an 11 years study of australian universities, which finished last months.
"Australia or Greece Antonios – your choice"
There is non one person who can tell me "Australia or Greece" if we start like that the only one who will stay in australia are the aborigines. I cogratulate you for your democratic sensitivity! I am australian citizen for long time but even if I was migrant I have the rights of free expresion.
FOR LONG TIME I KNOW THAT YOU ARE INTERESTED VERY MUCH FOR THE ENVIRONMENT BUT YOU DO NOT CARE VERY MUCH ABOUT HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEMOCRACY.
You belong to a small minority of australians but if join your efort with extrem nationalists, as One Nation you will become stronger!
Sorry madam but you are EXTREMELY hard.
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

Hey CJ, thanks for commending me for answering your questions in a comprehensive and forthright manner.

Yeah right!

“Ludwig's finally coming clean:”

Ceej have you got a dirty mind? Do you say things on OLO that you don’t really believe?

Well I don’t. I’m always total frank. So I’m not ‘coming clean’ about anything.

You were doing so well, old mate… better than I’ve ever seen you before, in entertaining a calm, logical and intelligent debate. But nooooo it couldn’t last could it. You had to fall back on your prolifically repeated slander of ”racists and xenophobes”.

Tch tch tch.

“Ludwig parrots the expressed fears of the xenophobes who claim to be terrified that the humane treatment of a few thousand bona fide refugees who may arrive by boat will signal to the world that Australia is a 'soft touch', or some such paranoia.”

So then, you don't think that the more humane treatment (better than under Howard), such as processing on the mainland, let alone free movement in mainstream society, would spur a greatly increased rate of arrivals...at a time when pressures that drive refugee movements are increasing, as acknowledged by everyone on both sides of this debate?

Come on, this is precisely the point that you’ve got so hung up on….that I’ve prompted you on numerous times and that you haven’t addressed!!

How could we possibly provide a significantly more humane practice for asylum seekers without spurring a great increase in arrivals?

How can you even entertain this issue when you can’t give a straight answer to this question ?? ?? ??

“I agree that it would be far preferable for all concerned if Australian Immigration authorities had some kind of viable system in place offshore to process applications from asylum seekers.”

Good. So have you even once lobbied our government about this or promoted this point on OLO??

You apparently don’t realise that this is exactly in line with my assertion that our refugee intake has got to happen entirely within our formal immigration program and that the onshore asylum seeker route should be shut down entirely.

The Pied Piper
Protagoras is extremely sensitive for the environment, she has deep knowledges about it. Probably she is a high level beaurocrat. Protagoras do not care very much for migrants or refugees.
While she knows so many things for our environment and the animals she ignore the very basics as citizens rights, migrants rights, human rights, democracy etc. She is writing as anonymous and cover her self.

The Pied Piper please keep a distance from me and protect your self! I have a long way to go and it will no be easy!
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

‘totally frank’, that should have read. Bloody piss-poor spell and grammar checker! Grrrrrr ):>(

F u c k I hate that !

“Lastly, there is always an inherent contradiction between the interests of humans and that of the environment”

NO! There isn’t CJ!

And it is surely the role of the greenies…however you may perceive greenies…. to strive to make the human existence on this continent (and planet) exist in harmony with the natural environment.

Is this really that hard? Aborigines and other indigenous peoples did it! Sure they modified their environments, as does every single species to some extent, but they came to live in harmony with them. That is; they came to live sustainably within the environment that they were a part of!

“Australia is legally and morally bound to accept bona fide refugees from such places, no matter how they get here.”

Ah phoowey!! Australia is bound by the edict of common sense to pursue the goal of sustainability.

The great problem with the refugee agreement that we are signatory of is that it is open-ended. It has nothing to say about numbers! It has nothing to say about the effects that accommodating large numbers of refugees could have on the host country, it’s quality of life, social harmony, environment, etc.

Australia actually accepted more refugees than any other country in the world last year on a per-capita basis and was second in raw numbers to the US.

Sure, we are morally bound to do our bit. We could accept twice as many. But certainly not by loosening our borders and prompting a large increase in onshore arrivals.

“It always seems supremely selfish to me when the comparatively wealthy beneficiaries of previous settlement claim that there's no room for those invariably poor and brown people who have been displaced from there homes by no fault of their own.”

Who’s saying that there is no room? Our debate is all about how they come here, how they are treated and how to treat them well without while maintaining control over who comes here.

Protagoras: “Why is it unfair?”

Probably bad word choice. Just doesn’t make sense I guess to critique any other country. Wouldn’t mind finding one that has sorted their own immigration and refugee puzzles though.

Antonios moved to Cyprus didn’t he? It is interesting that we never really see anyone as being anything but of their place of birth. I can see you admire some things Greek and if man is the measure of all things then we should try harder to accept all of them from everywhere.

Ludwig:”Australia actually accepted more refugees than any other country in the world last year on a per-capita basis and was second in raw numbers to the US.”

That’s just because there isn’t many people here though aye. Is the question becoming not whether to let them come but what to do with them once here? What does happen to a refugee that arrives, are they found work and housing quite swiftly? Placed on benefits?

Antonios:”The Pied Piper please keep a distance from me and protect yourself! I have a long way to go and it will no be easy!”

No.[smile]

You need to settle down a bit, Ludwig - you're starting to foam at the keyboard. By "coming clean" I meant that you've finally admitted that your paranoia about 'boat people' and your imagined hordes massed at Australia's borders is not driven by ecological concerns, but rather by your antipathy to the cultures that asylum seekers bring with them.

Further, you show clearly that your paranoid conjecture about 'boat people' is sufficient justification (in your mind) to treat asylum seekers inhumanely - how on earth could I think you're misanthropic? As you may be aware, the only study that has been done with 'boat people' who came to Australia recently indicates that they are generally ignorant about Australia, and even more so about our government policies towards refugees. [ http://tiny.cc/yvskf ]

Frankly, I don't know whether Rudd's more humane policies will encourage more genuine refugees to come to Australia by boat, and neither do you nor anybody else. The difference between us is that I don't see it as the end of the world as we know it if Australia has to accommodate even 10,000 boat people who are entitled by law to seek asylum here. Human rights trump xenophobic paranoia, in my book.

We agree that it would be preferable to process these people's applications offshore, but another area of disagreement is that I think that we are legally and morally bound to accept asylum seekers who arrive by boat for assessment until such time as facilities for processing them exist overseas.

Lastly (for now), you're off with the fairies if you think that Australians would be prepared to willingly consider the radical reduction in material standards of living that would be required for us to achieve the ecological balance that Aborigines had with the Australian environment before 1788. Rather, their approach - like yours - is to regard Australia as some kind of lifeboat and to repel all boarders, particularly if they have brown skin and come from a non-Western culture.

C J Morgan

It is interesting that the one report you quoted supports your view yet there are dozens of reliable studies done in Europe proving that country shopping does exist and the quick-witted illegal immigrants who manage to arrive illegally keep on moving until they find a country where the living is easiest.

Greece has been mentioned so here is an excerpt from a report relating to that country:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0424/p11s01-woeu.html

'Indeed, as one of the European Union's easternmost countries, Greece is increasingly a gateway for people fleeing conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most pay smugglers to take them by land across Turkey and then by boat to Greece. Many spend time in one of several government-run detention centers for illegal immigrants, where they are fingerprinted, their details entered into an EU-wide system known as FRONTEX, and given deportation orders.

Some choose to stay in Greece, either illegally or by applying for refugee status here. But most plan to continue on to wealthier European countries, like Sweden, known for their more generous asylum policies. They either don't know about the Dublin II rules, or choose to take their chances.'

This puts the lie to the argument that most or even many of the 'refugees' who buy or otherwise smuggle themselves into other countries are satisfied to find a safe country. In fact, many do so because they are seeking a better economic future and better guvvy conditions. Many were not in imminent fear of their lives, especially having arrived in Greece.

As has been said earlier, why are there so many single men (Australian family reunification policy could explain why) and why do so many make return visits to the country they were fleeing from supposedly in fear of their lives?

It is ridiculous to assert as you do that anyone who is opposed to people smuggling and illegal immigrants and all countries are, should be labelled zenophobic and racist. By your reckoning, every country is racist, with Australia being far less so given its record levels of (combined) migrant and refugee intakes on a per capita basis.

“Protagoras do not care very much for migrants or refugees”

Antonios

My father was a migrant, so is a son-in-law, as are several friends and neighbours. According to my daughter, my son-in-law is an excellent travelling companion when one travels to the Middle East due to his Middle Eastern appearance which seemingly discourages all the hawkers one usually encounters.

You may continue to duckshove the statements you make to other sources however, I would appreciate it if you could be a little more accurate rather than perpetuate an illusion that Australia is a racist nation:

”Over 40 percent of those surveyed feel that cultural differences pose a threat to societal harmony......The study also said that 6.5 percent Australians are against multiculturalism.”

6.5 percent Antonios? Remember you’re simply a new kid on the block. We are more accustomed to migrants than any other country. In addition, the above press release does not indicate a racist attitude in my opinion but a fearful one which resonates throughout the planet since 9/11 and the advent of Islamic, suicide bombers, yet you and the Pied Piper are fighting fang and claw to portray Australia as racist - "turn thy sight unto thyself."

The fact that a few Australian halfwits engaged in the Cronulla riots and have recently discriminated against Indians is no indication that the nation is racist. The fact that Aboriginal males are sexually abusing Aboriginal children (41 years after receiving equal rights) is no indication that the Australian public is racist.

Your uninformed inference to my concerns over Australia’s fragile ecology reveals that you lack even the most rudimentary concepts of the differences between a science and a flawed, bleeding heart ideology which would lead to an unmitigated retrograde disaster for the public, the environment and this nation:

“COME IN, COME MY GOOD REFUGEES, THIS CUNTRY IS OURS AND YOURS, ALL TEMPORARY VISITORS ON THIS PLANET!”

"Racist” and EU Justice Commissioner, Barrot does not agree:

"There is a major threat to the equilibrium of the Greek democracy because of the uncontrollable flow of immigration," Barrot told a press conference in Brussels.”

http://www.ana-mpa.gr/anaweb/user/selectlang?lang=en&currpageurl=%2Fuser%2Fshowplain%3Fmaindoc%3D7754976%26maindocimg%3D7754320%26service%3D98

1. 85 per cent of Australians acknowledge racial prejudice occurs in the nation and one in five has been a victim of racist verbal abuse.
2.FORTY per cent of Australians believe some ethnic groups do not belong in the country with one in 10 having outwardly racist views, a new study shows...NSW topped the list with 46 per cent of survey respondents saying some ethnic groups should not be in the country.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24415273-12377,00.html
3. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND YOU! I HAVE BEEN ABOUT 20 YEARS HERE, MY CHILDREN LIVE HERE, MY GRANDCHILDREN WILL LIVE HERE, WE SPEAK IN THE FORUM FOR AUSTRALIA AND YOU SPEAK FOR GREECE? Do you mean every time some one desagree with you you will run to find the country of his origin and attack his country?
Do you think that the people who left their country many years before and came to australia , that they have responsibilities for their former countries? Do you mean that because Blair supported the war in Iraq the britons in australia have any responsibility for it? Are you joking Protagora?
I said you that you are extremely hard with the refugees and your advice to australians to be hard with them was for me an indicator of luck of human sensitivity.
We support the people in need AND WE KNOW THAT IF WE LEAVE THEM WITH THEIR PROBLEMS SOON OR LATER WE WILL PAY HARD FOR IT!
Do you know what I wrote last week in the forum of the greek newspaper TA NEA http://www.tanea.gr/rendered.htm
about migrants and refugees? I WAS MUCH HARDER WITH THEM THAN I AM ON THIS FORUM. I do not have two faces I stand by migrants and refugees here or in Greek forums, You can not blame for Greeks when I left it so many years before. I try, the only thing I can do!
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

The Pied Piper
In an other tread a poster asked you how do you know what happened with the girl and football team (something like that!) and you said "I was there!" Then The Pied Piper I look at your face and I remember that I met you on the top of the mountain to discuss with Promitheus, I found his spirit on you! Thank you for all.
No.[smile]? Realy? Thank you!
What business do you want to create? Not something important, You know every Sunday I full up my van and I have a permanent spot inside in the market and I sell various products but mainly mobile chargers, motorola, nokia, samsung, sony ericsson, LG, etc wall, car or USB chargers, there are hundrends of different models and different charges. mobile faceplates, cases, leather, clear, etc, mobile batteries, mobile socks and mobile data cables to conect the mobile with the computer etc. I have many computer staff etc. I prefer a shop like, (not exactly) DICK SMITH but it is difficult for a single person alone to establish business and parallel to work full time as employee. 4-5 years before I tryied with a computer shop but I closed it, now I am in better conditions and I extend my products with mobile staff and electronic staff. In worst case I will try when I will take my superanuantion.
What about you? I do not know many things about your job. Do you care many children alone? Do you have them permanent in your house? how old they are? You are an educated, sensitive and mature person but I worry for your job? many children, different ages, full responsibilities, I WORRY FOR YOU!For me you are a friend but I do not know if and what usefull I can do for you.
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

Antonios, it's barely worth talking to some of the idiots here. These people you are arguing against are a MINORITY. They do NOT speak for Australia as a whole.

They ALWAYS try to perpetuate 2 MYTHS:

Myth number(1): That they have no cultural bias

Myth number(2): That the reason for their opposition to refugees and migration is because Australia can't sustain a greater population than is already here

As anyone with even a semblance of awareness knows, these people FEAR DIFFERENCE. Their motivation against refugees and migration is betrayed by the way they use language. They fear cultures that don't conform to "their" culture, and they don't want those cultures "over here". And THAT is their basis for their opposition to refugees and migration. Believe me Antonios, they are a MINORITY in Australia (a very loud and vocal minority).

Some of them absolutely LOVE to present the old, discredited furphy that Australia can't support a greater population than we already have. The "FAKE" greenie, Ludwig (whose right wing language easily betrays his falsely "claimed" greenie leanings) is one such person. He's NO greenie. This is a "TACTIC" that they use Antonios. Some of them "pretend" to be "green" because they "think" the science backs them up - - - - - and they "think" if they have science on their side that their CULTURAL BIGOTRY and FEARS (which is their motivation for opposition to refugees/migration) will not be noticed.

These types are as transparent as a glass house. Their language always betrays them - - - - - eventually somewhere along the line.

Refugees and migrants have shown throughout Australia's history that, overall, they make FANTASTIC citizens. They are no better, or no worse, than the people already here.

Antonios

The link I provided on illegal immigrants in Greece was given as an example of what could happen in Australia if we put you in charge of immigration – heaven forbid!

“85% percent surveyed agreeing that racism exists in Australia.” Sure count me in on that too would you? That suggests that 85% of those surveyed were not racist, however, they, like I, can be influenced by the media who report on racist attacks such as the ethnically motivated Sydney gang rapes committed by fourteen Lebanese Australian men on Anglo-Celtic Australian teenage girls as young as 14 and a sister to one Lebanese Australian offender stating on national TV that these Anglo-Celtic girls got what they deserved.

Then we have the Cronulla riots; the arrest of three teenage boys who were charged with assaulting citizens of Indian origin and Sheik Taj Din al-Halali denigrating non-Muslim women.

With the exception of the Sheik, all these crimes were committed by callow, testosterone driven youths – hardly a balanced view of Australia’s attitude to ethnic minorities.

Some of the issues in the UWS report which you omitted to provide us with are:

Q1: Is it a good thing for society to be made up of different cultures? NSW: Yes: 84%, No: 8% (ACT: Yes: 94.3% and NT: Yes: 93.7%.)

Q2: All ‘races’ of people are equal. NSW: Yes: 83.2%, No: 11.7%. ( Six other states rated more highly for “Yes.”)

Q3: Experience of discrimination in workplace: NSW Yes: 18.1%

Q4: I am prejudiced against other cultures. NSW: Yes: 13.2%

Not too bad for a “racist” country Antonios so why the hyperbole?

I have expressed my opinion earlier on this thread – opinions which have been reiterated by others here and they are to honour our obligations to accommodate genuine refugees who are being persecuted. Many illegal refugees, on their way to Australia, are apprehended and repatriated from Indonesia and many voluntarily return to their homelands.

Alas, Antonios, you wish to offer gifts to all the "refugees" around the world on our behalf but your Trojan horse, I believe, has an acute limp.

I would worry setting up a business... is now a good time Antonios? Did you like having the shop?

I am 41, have my own two kids, eldest is 19 and has left home. I have always been a stay at home mum and started fostering around 12 years ago. The rest of my family works. On average I will have up to 6 children under five years old living with me full time. They will stay from a few weeks up to a couple of years until court decides if they go home or go to a long term foster parent. It is volunteer work and DoCS pays an allowance per child to cover all their expenses.

I do care for the children mostly alone as my husband works in Sydney so it is a long work day for him. I love little kids and learnt through fostering that it doesn’t matter whether or not people are from the same race, creed or bloodline for them to be family.

I only started looking at Forums for the first time at the end of February. I met a lady through one forum because my dog was sick and she told me to come on here. She asked me to leave a message to Yabby and one to someone else but neither responded and then I found out later that maybe the message was a joke on them. Because of the wee kids I know some of my messages are rushed or I get a bit distracted while writing them. I try hard to make sense.

Today I watched a very small child play with a puppy, it is the first time this child has been near a dog and the first time the dog has been around one so young. It was a match made in heaven.

But don’t worry for me Antonios and you are of great use, reading your posts makes me very happy that you are in this world.

Properly looking after kids is the hardest job of all. I've known 2 Kings of Industry ( and one Queen) who fell in a heap when presented with the opportunity to care for their kids for a few weeks without partner help. That was in the 50s though.

“… I see a bright and wonderful future for this country and the rest of the world. A future based on sustainable farming and manufacturing practices”

Good. But surely Master you can see that the number of people demanding a good quality of life on this largely arid and infertile continent with already seriously stressed water supply issues, is of the utmost importance. All the good gains that we make by way of better resource use efficiency and waste management and the improved technologies that allow us to do this while upholding a good quality of life, are just going to be diluted if not completely overwhelmed by rapid population growth.

The most important thing of all for us in Australia, as it should be in every country, is to protect our quality of life and social coherence. We can do our bit on the world stage, but not if it gravely risks our own wellbeing. If our society seriously starts to fall apart, we won’t be able to uphold a humanitarian role, either by way of accommodating refugees or providing international aid to help address the source issues.

That doesn’t mean protecting our current highly profligate standard of living. It means upholding values like health, security, freedom, life purpose, family and community bonds, law and order, etc.

So we have to tread very carefully as far as immigration and asylum seekers who come here outside of our immigration program are concerned.

It’s a crying shame that there wasn’t total outrage expressed when Rudd considerably increased the immigration intake, above an already record high level under Howard, as soon as he got into power, without a word of it in the election campaign.

Master I don’t agree with your various assertions about refugee movements etc. You can’t assert any of this stuff. All manner of things could happen that change the course that you think we are on. One very real possibility is a pandemic, which takes out a large portion of the world’s population.

Protagoras
The findings of the studies about the race discrimination in Sydney

% of Sydney SD respondents
Anti-cultural difference1 8.7
Insecurity with difference2 11.2
Diversity = weak nation3 45.6
Self identify as racist4 14.3
Denial of racial prejudice5 10.2 what is this?
Deny Anglo privilege6 43.1 what is this?
Racialism7 77.0
Racial separatism8 12.7
Racial hierarchy9 11.8
Spatial manager10 46.6
Anti-Asian11 26.4
Anti-Indigenous11 29.1
Anti-Italian11 11.3
Anti-British11 8.7
Anti-Muslim11 56.6
http://www.uws.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/27048/SydneySD.pdf

You are not only against refugees but you are specialist in hiding the trooth!
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

Protagoras
You are not only against refugees but you are specialist in hiding the trooth! I mean the truth! I have made huge speling mistakes, I hope you understand what I mean!

1. 56.6% of people in Sydney are against muslims and you say we are not racists? When do you think we can call our self racists when even the muslims are against the Muslims? Tell me Protagoras how will you feel when you know that one in two people are against you?

2. 43.1% of people in Sydney deny Anglo privilege, what about the rest of the people who do not deny that there are Anglo privilege? Can you tell me why the mass majority believe that there are the Anglo privileges?

3. 29.1% of people in Sydney are against aborigines, how many do you want to be against aborigines to convince your self that we are racists? Is it not enouph that aborigines suffer from us so much for so long time and we continue to be, one in three against them?

4. 85% of Australians acknowledge racial prejudice occurs in the nation, You disagree with them! I respect your right to disagree with the 85% of Australians but do not be angry when I said that you agree with Howard and you belong to a small minority!

5. 26.4% are against asians ,tell me Protagoras how will you feel when you know that one in four people are against you?

Can you imagine Protagoras how Muslims, Aborigines, Asians, Jews, migrants or refugees feel when they know that there are so many people against them?
Protagoras we are not children to play games, WHEN THERE IS A PROBLEM WE RECOGNIZE ITS EXISTANCE AND WE TRY TO SOLVE IT. I am afraid that you do everything to hide the problem of race discrimination! You are not helpfull at all for the solusion of this HUGE problem!

The Pied Piper, some where you wrote for $5.000 per year and I was not happy at all!Thank you
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaid

"You are not only against refugees but you are specialist in hiding the trooth! I mean the truth! I have made huge speling mistakes, I hope you understand what I mean!"

I understand very well Antonios but first you will need to provide evidence to support your claim that I am a liar.

Protagoras
You are a smart woman! I said that you are hard but I never said that you are not very smart. Let's tell few words for the study!
As you know the race discrimination against jews is from the highest in the world. In realy, even after the 11/9 , in Europe the attacks against jews was more than against Muslims!
Tell me Protagoras why in the study they asked for Italians or British but they forgot to ask for the Jews? Did they expect australians to be more against Italians or British than against Jews?
I SUPPOSED THEY TRY TO HIDE THE TRUTH ABOUT THE RACISM AGAINST JEWS!
But when a "study" try to hide the truth then we have a problem! Then the study is not so good, innocent study!
Tell me PROTAGORAS why in the study they asked "deny Anglo privilige" and they did not ask for RACE PRIVILEGE OR ANGLO PRIVILIGE? WHY?
What else did they do to find they truth they wanted?
I am sure if I study the study I would find much more strange things!
Do you see Protagoras we are playing games again, this time not from you but from the professors!
I PREFER THE PURE TRUTH!
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

I did not tell that you are a liar, I said you that you hide the truth. This is different! I gave you the finding from the study with the link what else do you want from me? Do you think that I lie? You have the link, the address of the web site indicates uws.edu, I supposed it means University of West Sydney.
I think if you give the address from the web site you took your information we will find what hapen and why there is this problem!
MAY BE WE ARE BOTH LIARS! May be I took the worst and you took the best but realy I do not know from where you took your information!
Protagoras I know that you are strong and I avoided you in the past but you attacked me first! I had to reply.
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

“Properly looking after kids is the hardest job of all. I've known 2 Kings of Industry (and one Queen) who fell in a heap when presented with the opportunity to care for their kids for a few weeks without partner help. That was in the 50s though.”

Hey Master, and I thought kids were better behaved back then?! It’s not hard but people are prone to over-think it aye. Most important would be a sense of humor and some keen observation skills.

“The Pied Piper, some where you wrote for $5.000 per year and I was not happy at all!”

No I wouldn’t be either. It is 400.00 a fortnight for a child under five in NSW. You get more if something isn’t right with them; you can get more if DoCS are apparently trying to do a deal with you too. With me there are many times where I have to keep asking for payments and by then clothing etc has gone on a credit card and you’re paying that back too. Or they overpay and a year later write saying they will take you to court – lovely.

Centrelink will also give you family assistance but because our family has an income we get a lot less. The horrible thing in this country is that if my husband quit work we’d not be worse off financially. This seems a bad lesson for a country to teach its people.

What happens to refugee children? Do any get born at Xmas Island and what is their status? I have no idea (NZ either) what a country does with refugees in all practical ways after they arrive.

The Pied Piper
I feel qiulty with you! I did not have to ask you this kind of questions. I am very sorry! You are many times better than I thought. I have to support my friend not to bring her in difficult position, not to press her for personal or family information,especialy publicly.
I AM VERY SORRY FOR MY STUPID QUESTIONS TO YOU!
Please if in the future if I put to you this kind of questions DO NOT ANSWER TO ME! OK? I am not bad but I do not like to hurt you.
About the time for shop, not now, now simple I learn the secrets from this kind of business, from this kind of products. I exersise my self. I will take my superanuansion after 6-7 years.
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaid

Protagoras
Some news about Greece!
Greek riot police have led an operation to demolish a makeshift camp housing illegal immigrants in the western port city of Patras.....
The camp in Patras had been in existence in some form or another for 13 years.
A few months ago, it accommodated about 1,800 people, mainly from Afghanistan.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8146597.stm

The Greek conservative government makes deportation easier, but to be honest not only conservatives but also left governments do not like refugees or eligal migrants.
I understand them but I desagree with them, the cost from refugees are high in difficult economic and environment conditions.
The opposition parties are ready to grab any opportunity and sent home the governments!
We, the world citizens, the innocent, fair, sensitive people, have no other choice than to stay by our refugee brothers and sisters.
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

Antonios Symeonakis, "We, the world citizens, the innocent, fair, sensitive people, have no other choice than to stay by our refugee brothers and sisters."

Jolly good, while you are standing beside them could you hand out contraceptives and 'have an abortion free' cards?

The Australians you so despise achieved zero population growth years ago otherwise they could also be part of the problem and not the solution as you see it.

If you really, truly, want to help your brothers and sisters in undeveloped countries you could be a champion for women's rights in those countries. Think about it - why should their women be sentenced to producing children they do not want and can't feed or keep safe from harm?

Rail against the oppressive governments that spend our aid on arms or sell off the food we donate before it can reach the people it is intended for. Especially, rail against governments and religions that keep women in the Dark Ages - uneducated, backward and always pregnant.

You are not prevented I hope by your own religious beliefs or convictions from making such protests.

Cornflower: << It is interesting that the one report you quoted supports your view >>

Er, no - my view is a product of assessing the available evidence, rather than on paranoid speculation. As I said, it's the only formal study of which I'm aware that actually addresses the prior knowledge of Australia and its immigration policies, held by asylum seekers who have arrived here relatively recently by boat. If you're aware of any others, I'd be grateful if you could direct us to them.

As for your linked article about asylum seekers in Greece, why pick that one if there are "dozens of reliable studies done in Europe proving that country shopping does exist" that presumably support your position much better than it does? Did you actually read it in its entirety?

My reading of the article is that, despite Greece's appalling treatment of refugees who arrive there seeking asylum, their numbers increased twentyfold between 2001 and 2004 - i.e. Greece's harsh policies towards asylum seekers had no deterrent effect. Further, rather than being evidence for "country shopping", the article shows that asylum seekers only move on from Greece to other countries in Europe once they realise that they have almost no chance of finding safe refuge there.

Their situation is quite similar to those who hapless refugees who find themselves transported to Malaysia or Indonesia by people smugglers - except that Greece, of course, is a signatory to the UN Convention and has been quite rightly criticised by the UNHCR for its dereliction of its responsibilities under international law.

I don't assert that "anyone who is opposed to people smuggling and illegal immigrants... should be labelled zenophobic (sic) and racist". I'm opposed to illegal immigrants myself, but (for the umpteenth time) bona fide refugees are legally entitled to seek asylum in all countries that are signatories to the UN Convention, irrespective of how they enter them. I also advocate Australia setting up offshore processing facilities and protocols that would put the people smugglers out of business.

CJ Morgan

There is no reason to suggest that illegal immigrants act differently in Europe than they do here. Why do you suppose they might?

Do you often resort to negatively labelling your opponents to try to bring them into disrepute and thereby diminish the credibility of their arguments? The answer is a resounding 'Yes!'. Aren't you conscious of doing it?

Cornflower, for the umpteenth + 1 time, asylum seekers are not illegal immigrants.

Do you often resort to negatively and erroneously labelling the objects of your paranoia to try to bring them into disrepute and thereby diminish the credibility of their status as bona fide refugees?

C J Morgan

The report we were discussing refers to illegal immigrants: 'European Union refugee policy known as Dublin II requires asylum seekers to apply in the first country they enter'. Where they choose to move on to get a sweeter deal (than Greece or other countries) they are regarded as illegal immigrants.

You have already admitted that some or many of the boat people you speak of are country shopping in choosing to leave their first safe haven of call to come to Australia. Surely you are not seriously suggesting their lives were any more at risk in Malaysia or Indonesia than in their home country? Sure, the conditions and Guvvy support are not as good as in Australia and that is why you say they move on. It is reasonable to assume they wouldn't part with their money to come here on a whim and they do have some knowledge of Australia - just as 'refugees' who choose to go to leave Greece bound for Sweden are well informed and seeking to improve their lot rather than save their (already saved) lives.

How can they be refugees after they reject one safe haven and pursue another. If it is good enough for all of Europe to draw a distinction then so might Australia. Or do you want Australia to end up like Greece?

Antonios, me of all people have made it very clear that really I just am who I am with nothing to hide. It keeps me honest.

I don’t know any other way to be, even on line. All my opinions come from who I am and how I have lived. I wont be hurt by you my friend.

Publicly I can’t be clear what children are with me or anything that could identify them, not safe for them in some situations. On the other hand this very secrecy enables them to be abused within the system. Scary world.

Where’s Belly by the way?

“If it is good enough for all of Europe to draw a distinction then so might Australia.”

And if they jumped off a cliff you would to?

I do wish you'd stop misrepresenting me, Cornflower.

I have not "already admitted that some or many of the boat people [I] speak of are country shopping in choosing to leave their first safe haven of call to come to Australia". Indeed, I have asserted quite the reverse - I have said that asylum seekers who come to Australia by boat from Malaysia and Indonesia are NOT "country shoppers" (as you like to pejoratively label them), since those countries are not signatories to the UN Convention and treat refugees notoriously poorly. They are not "safe havens" by any stretch of the imagination.

Are you being deliberately obtuse, or do you have a problem with English comprehension?

Further, the issue we are discussing is that of asylum seekers who travel to Australia by boat. Your link to a report about illegal immigrants in Europe, together with your comment that "There is no reason to suggest that illegal immigrants act differently in Europe than they do here", is clearly a deliberate effort to imply that the boat people who are the subject of this discussion are "illegal immigrants".

If you have a valid argument there's really no need to be dishonest.

“I PREFER THE PURE TRUTH”

You speak with forked tongue my friend for it's obvious that the purpose of your crusade is to demonise Australians.

I must say you are most fortunate though in your ability to promote your crusade by having two Online pseudonyms where I guess you have one for home use and the other to continue on during working hours – eg. AnSymeonakis and ASymeonakis. Oh for a boss who permits his employees to dabble away on debate forums at his expense! You are indeed privileged.

Further to the link you have provided on “racism” I now provide you with a couple of excerpts on the Sydney survey to which you conveniently referred, to enhance your argument. 1,845 respondents participated in the Sydney survey but you have used the largest mulitcultural area (and the most congested) in Australia to tar the entire nation with the same brush:

“Highest levels of racism by Sydney standards
and recognition of Anglo privilege
occur in several inner western and southwestern
LGAs of lower SES but with high
levels of cultural diversity (group 10); an
above-average number of respondents say
that ‘others are racist and so am I’.

“Significantly, perhaps, these are areas with the
highest numbers of recently arrived immigrants
from Asian and Middle Eastern
countries where contact has not yet led to
intergroup social acceptance and where, on
the evidence presented in Table 4, ethnic
groups are as intolerant as the Australian born.

“Nor is intolerance the preserve of the Australian born
alone, as highlighted by the attitudes of
different birthplace groups to aspects of intolerance
(Table 4). Compared with the Australian-
born, the most intolerant groups are
generally Asians, especially those from
north-east Asia (principally China and Hong
Kong); southern Europeans have quite high
levels of intolerance, surprisingly, perhaps,
exceeding that of Middle Eastern immigrants.

“More specifically, southern Europeans
(mainly from Italy, Greece and the former
Yugoslavia) have the highest level of intolerance
towards racial intermarriage, an aspect of
the ‘old’ racism, with those from north-east
Asia not much more tolerant.”

http://www.uws.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/29408/A291.pdf

Pot/kettle? Inciting racial hatred Antonios?

While my PC died the thread moved on.
Just suppose for a second that what CJ Morgan called true refugees, numbered a million
Any time soon we may see such numbers trying to come here.
Most of us have an understanding boat people are not country picking.
We are much shorter and easier than say the USA .
Is it a problem that people wait in dreadful conditions to come here or just have a chance
It is true isnt it boat people more often get to stay than be sent home gatecrashers or refugees its the umbers I see as the problem.
Yes of shore detention is a must, long prison sentences or people smugglers, more of shore refugees taken in.
But far less almost none, of these coming by boat.
Rewarding boat people increases the problems.
The answer must be found in the country's they leave, work, food a life worth living.

That’s the way CJ, when all else fails, resort to your trademark slurs of ‘racist’, ’xenophobic’ and ‘paranioa’, oh and ‘misanthropic’ (In response to your post of 12 July 9.28AM).

Go right ahead and degrade what would otherwise be a reasonable debate. Go right ahead and keep doing what hundreds of posters have criticised you for.

Go right ahead and make sure that you are seen as an unbalanced debater with little substance beyond broad concepts.

Can’t you see that every time you fall back on these slurs, the immediate impression is that you can’t address the issue in a logical manner? The impression is that you’ve been caught out. That’s certainly my impression and it is clearly that of many others on this forum.

The use of the slur tactic is just so very poor. It sits very much at odds with your obvious intelligence, good command of English and ability to entertain sensible, polite and vigorous debate.

And on this occasion you are directing your rubbish at someone who holds views that are really not that far from yours:- I want a considerably increased refugee intake, I want refugees to be treated humanely, while being very mindful of upholding a strong deterrence factor, I want Australia to greatly increase its international aid effort, directed at the causal factors of refugeeism and at population stabilisation and sustainability issues, all of which are very closely related, etc.

How about a reasonable discussion here CJ, between the two of us, who have been pretty amicable correspondents for a long time. No more silly slanderous slurs, or misrepresentations. How about just asking straight questions about points of disagreement, and giving straight answers where asked the same.

.
That’s a pretty reasonable summation Belly.

RE: [ http://tiny.cc/yvskf ] – Morgan’s famous study.

Incidentally Morgan – how many ‘refugees’ were interviewed for the study …27
Ay! can we have that again, how many? 27!

And it seems that the interviewers accepted at face value all they were told by that 27 – Truly Madly Deeply!

Now, that’s what I call a thorough piece of research –ROFL

Belly,
There are at least a million genuine refugees, but they will not try to come here simply because they do not have the money to bribe officials and pay the boat owners for passage. Thousands of Zimbarbwe have fled to neighbouring countries and Malaysia has problems with Burmese 'asylum seekers'. They do not try to come here as they are genuine and poor.

The illegals we get fly to Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and from there pay smugglers to arrange a boat to Christmas Island. We charge the boat owners and crew but they are only poor fishermen.

Yes the numbers could rise dramaticaly, but it is not only the numbers that is concern to me, it is the fact that they are trying to con us. They are Queue jumpers and gate crashers. They stay in hotels and boarding houses and bribe officials while waiting their passage. They are country shopping and they have not come from those dreadfull refugee camps. Some are carrying large amounts of money. They are aware of the laxer detention and promise of permanent residency and, as Ludwig said, our approval standards are much lower than UNHCR. Now they do not have to have character checks.

I would far sooner have plane loads from Zimbarbwe or Burma than the con artists that come by boat and force themselves upon us.

I really dislike liars and cheats. IMO we should do everything possible to deter and make it not worth the cost/risk.

CJ is spot on, and you all fear the big picture. You people that fear so much, have a lot of work to do and don't say you don't! White Australians fear all that don't agree with their convict beginnings, Yes you pommy self-jugging, this is your land!... bullsh@t.

I remember my days that's gone by, and too be cold, you Aussies where bastards! and you all wonder why we don't bond with you.

I( live in a town of Aussie morons that think they can dictate and rule as if they have some sort of birth right! wake up you di@kheads.

The word is, there are two types of looser,s. One! they think they can, and the other is, they know they cant. Do people see the fear card? Well if you do.... try and help them.

We know you are frightened, but don't be. cause to be quite frank, ITS ALL IN YOUR HEADS! and white people were not the beginning.

Does evolution ever blow through that self appointed minds of yours?
I wonder sometimes.

A fear driven world of one? this can-not happen, and if you continue, you will be a part of the world we just don't want.

Winner or looser!

Your choice!

But don't take too long, cause we will just ignore you.

Sock.

Sorry all! my spelling is not good,lol... but you get the picture.

You all have a great night and think of a world that has no fear.

We Dont bite you know. wink.

Sock

Protagoras
When we have the results of the study in numbers we do not need any coment from any one! I prefer the numbers from the words!
Do you or any one specialist have any doupt that Anti-Muslims in Sydney are 56.6%?
Do you or any one specialist have any doupt that Anti-Indigenous in Sydney are 29.1%?
Do you or any one specialist have any doupt that Anti-Asian in Sydney are 26.4%?
Do you or any one specialist have any doupt that 45.6% of people in Sydney believe that diversity weaken the nation?
Do you or any one specialist have any doupt that ONLY 43.1% of people in Sydney Deny Anglo privilege?
If protagoras You or any one else do not doupt for the numbers I wrote above, THEN WE DON NOT NEED ANY COMENT FROM ANYONE, WE KNOW WHAT THEY MEAN.
If any one doupt about the numbers I wrote above then they can find them at http://www.uws.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/27048/SydneySD.pdf
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

Protagoras
"it's obvious that the purpose of your crusade is to demonise Australians"
REALY? Which australians? Only from my family, first, second and thirst generation we are more than fifty,
Do you mean I try to demonise them?
Do you mean I demonise australians when I copy and past the findings of a study of australian universities about race discrimination?
Do you mean I demonise australians because I disagree with you about refugees?
Do you mean I demonise australians because I fight against race discrimination, against the victimization of innocent people?
Do you mean I demonise australians because I try for the solosion of a problem and I do not close my eyes,I do not say that the black is white?
"Inciting racial hatred Antonios?" Do you try to close my mouth with this kind of threats?
Do you thing the threats is the right way to solve a problem?
Instead to turn your arrows against the racists you try to scare the victims?
Protagoras did you find anything about Jews? Is not it strange that they did not ask anything about Jews?
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaid

Cornflower
"If you really, truly, want to help your brothers and sisters in undeveloped countries you could be a champion for women's rights in those countries"
You have right, I agree with you.
Last week you asked me if the thread for paid maternity, paternity, parental leave was mine, yes was mine and if you read all my posts on this thread you will find that I support women' rights.
I think you will find some post of me on this forum where I support women' rights. I have written in 3-4 forum in Australia, USA and Greece and I think I wrote many times for women;s rights especialy in the Muslim world, many times I wrote against sharia law because it discriminate against women.
I signed many petitions for women' rights mainly with USA Amnesty or Human Rights First, I had in the past 2-3 web sites with some pages for women's rights etc.
Generaly you have right WE WILL NOT SOLVE THE PROBLEM WITH REFUGEES AND ILEGAL MIGRANTS IF WE DO NOT CREATE THE SWEETABLE CONDITIONS IN UNDEVELOPED COUNTRIES. Sweetable conditions mean democracy, respect to human rights, including women' rights as abortion etc, mean free basic education for all children, mean basic health system, mean less corruption, fair international trade, mean rspect of workers rights etc.
Unfortunatly the catholic church, the biggest Cristian church in the world is against the abortion, condom or pil and it makes the control of population in undeveloped countries more difficult.
YOU HAVE RIGHT!
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

You are all missing the point. Does Australia have enough to deal with when in reality we are all clans people. Yes that's right! and the real answer is, we all have to work a bit harder, but this name calling has to stop. What the hell is wrong with the people of today? Not the ten rats in box is it? Well maybe. The 19th born people will have the hardest times with it all, but don't let progress get in the way of a growing situation we will never control.

If you want more people in this world/ this works against all our instincts and this is whats needed if you all want to over-come the "who are you dilemma."

Its ALL FEAR.

But again! Whats new.

How do you get all faces together, I just don't know.

sock.

Ludwig,Banjo I find no reason to differ with one word of your last posts.
I admire C J Morgan, and understand he is further left than me, and often we must clash.
AS? while I find it harder each day to ignore what I truly believe is a clear anti Australian bias, is quite right.
Yes it is likely to be true 56%of Sydney siders may well be concerned about Muslims.
In fact that may be the percentage world wide, number me partly among them.
See the burning of Christians in Iraq?
Or read the hate against us all, from SOME of them, walked the streets of western Sydney?
Lets not highlight our faults alone AS may I ask you to produce figures to show how many Muslims dislike me, or us, or even people from your country of birth?
It is not unusual to be afraid of others, sadly it is human nature, if one Day we could dump religion ,all of it, we could start being one people.

My last post is troubling, even to me.
See at the heart of this thread is a truth we must not ignore.
Racism is ALWAYS wrong, but in debating this issue we should be honest.
Branding those who think differently is an effort to stop free speech, yes it is!
Refugee Migration, world wide will grow forever, if we let it.
Just consider a war, say between India and Pakistan.
Such a war could bring 50 million to leave one or both country's, tell me it can not happen.
North Korea starves its people, most never know they are brain washed, if they glimpsed the real world?
In time hopefully we will be able to take the blinkers off and see our world and its problems as it and they really are.
AS? you confront my country in many issues but not in a constructive way.
I would willingly have debate that is constructive but close down to your one sided slant on a world wide human issue

Nah! Belly, I have to disagree with you about Morgan.
He is not to be admired, he is to be pitied.
He does not think for himself, he merely regurgitates the most fashionably clichés of his narrow, barren subculture.

And as for his tactics –an old nursery rhyme puts it best:

Morgan CJ, puddin’ and pie
Called us names and told us lies
When the boys came out to fray
Morgan CJ, just, ran away.

Protagoras
My friend what happened with you? I said to you that you are a hard but smart woman, but I have known that you are a responsible person
In your last thread I think the anger took control of your mind!1. "Inciting racial hatred Antonios?" Do you show to me the path to the prison ? Do you try to drive me out from the fight for a better Australia?
I am afraid you realy hate me! Do you want to create to me REAL problems? Do not you know that my way is the best way to solve any important problem , instead to leave it to build up and get ouf of control? Do not you know that the beauty of democracy is that it allows us to detect and solve problems before they become big and threaten our societies?
2. "Oh for a boss who permits his employees to dabble away on debate forums at his expense!"
My friend what is this, do you try to create problems to me with my employer? Do you advise my employer to suck me? Do you mean that I am a lazy, irrisponsible employee who weast his working time on the forums instead to work?
Protagoras woke up! You took a dangerous, slipery path, you fully relised your fantacy and you use it against me! MY GOOD FRIEND I DO NOT HAVE OR SEE ANY COMPUTER IN MY WORK, YOU KNOW, A BASTARD MIGRANT WHO CLEANS THE FLOORS AND MACHINES FOR 16 YEARS IN THE SAME WORKPLACE!
Protagoras, calm, take a deep breath and try to understand me. We the migrants from non privilege race need a litle space to move arount, more oxygen to breath, I try to remind you your poor relatives! Are you angry for it?
GOD BLESS YOU AND I WISH THE HOLY SPIRIT TO SHOW YOU THE RIGHT PATH. AMEN!
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

Antonios,
You claim to support workers, support aboriginals, support migrants, support refugees and now support womens rights. Now you have also said you are truthfull and honest.

Well I have a couple of questions for you.

As we know there are some cultures that carry out FGM on young girls, do you think we should continue to allow immigration of those groups that carry out FGM, or do migrants have a right to practice their culture?

Some cultures allow for forced marriages, again should that be acceptable in our society or should we stop immigration of those that practice it?

In some cultures incest and peadophillia is normal practice, Should we allow those groups to immigrate?

In some cultures hatred and fighting is passed down from generation to generation, should these groups be allowed to immigrate.

In some cultures it is acceptable to pour acid on a woman if she rejects romantic advances, should our society accept those of that culture?

In some cultures it is common practice to burn a wife with kerosene if one is not happy with her. Is that acceptable practice of immigrants that come here?

Where do you think migrants rights and womens rights start and finish?

You have issued an open invitation to anyone who wants to come here, without regard to rheir character or cultural practice, so how do reconcile that with your other claims of support for others?

What alien cultural practices should we accept in our society?

Belly
"AS may I ask you to produce figures to show how many Muslims dislike me, or us"
My friend I do not know for the Muslims but I know from that in the most racist city, the Sydney the anti-British Australians are 8.7%, I am sure in the other cities or states there are less anti-British Australians. Do not worry there is no anti-british hate but people know that Britons belong to the privilege race! Only 43.1% in SYDNEY DENY THE Anglo privilege!
My freind I am not the only person who speak against the race privileges, the majority of Australians agree that Anglo privileges exist!
Sorry sir but the truth is truth!
EVIVA THE LOST TRUTH IN THE NAME OF RACE PRIVILEGES!
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

You could and do easily allow the practices that are not in direct opposition to your laws and culture Banjo baby.

You don’t want some silly Swedes here telling you not to hit your children. I bet there was an uproar when you had Kiwi’s around telling you to give women the vote.

Belly, you’re doing that thing you do – talking about Muslims like they are a race of people. Glad to see you about though.

Protagoras, err... nothing.[smile]

Antonios, today I am bored. This has been said and said and probably some of those 10,000 are all parked up watching foxtel and eating Maccas on Aussie soil while we discuss them.

PS... can’t remember who mentioned it awhile ago but there is a Mosque on Xmas Island, I saw it on the internet so it has to be real.

The Pied Piper
My friend I worry for you because you are very honest person, very opened person, you do not have any defence line! I know that you are a strong, sensitive, mature person but I want to know that you have some kind of defence system. This world is a bad world and I do not say you to afraid but to be less open, at least publicly.
The Pied Piper I found that you are very friendly to me, but I want from you to see me as realy I am, a poor, failed,stupid migrant! OK?
I am different from you! I seem defentless but in realy I have two or three defence lines, I have moved in different directions simultaneously and often I try to confuse my opponent and to limit his anger against me. IN REALY MY GOOD FRIEND I AM A WHITE HAWK, SIMPLE I TRY TO HUND THE BAD ONES!
One time you asked me if ever I won in australia, I did not answered to you, but may be I won some times! do not ask me for details! especialy publicly! OK my friend?
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

Antonios has said he's pro immigration, but I went back and read many of his posts and I can't see where he specifically issued "an open invitation to anyone who wants to come here without regard to their character or cultural practice" as Banjo has FALSELY INSINUATED in his above ludicrous post.

So Banjo, BACK UP YOUR INSINUATION WITH PROOF!

Also Banjo claims there's current cultures (PLURAL) that may be able to immigrate to Australia, that currently practice as "normal" cultural "practice" pedophilia and incest.

Banjo, name the specific, current cultures where this is "normal practice". Remember you said - - - "NORMAL PRACTICE".

We should notice that "almost" all the "cultures" that banjo mentions are from enclaves of the radical, fundamentalist "MUSLIM" regions. These practices are NOT supported by the VAST< VAST< VAST majority of decent Muslims worldwide. As with most anti migration bigots in Australia, their opposition to Muslim migrants is informed by an INACCURATE and BIGOTED knowledge of Islam.

So what has banjo really done with his ludicrous post?

He's made a false insinuation regarding another forum member, and has then chosen the worst traits of the worst cultures he can dig up in his dirty little mind, and has then inserted those traits into questions that "IMPLY" Antonios doesn't care about the various evils of life - - - - that Antonios cares more about evil migrants than he does about the welfare of Australia.

Banjo, typical of "some" of the anti immigration lobby, your post shows you are more interested in manipulation than anything else.

Antonios’ distorted example: “Do you or any one specialist have any doupt that Anti-Muslims in Sydney are 56.6%?”

Fact – Actual Survey Question:

“ In your opinion how concerned would you feel if one of your close relatives were to marry a person of…?:”

1. Muslin Faith: Not at all concerned = 42.5 %, Slightly concerned = 16.0%, Somewhat concerned = 12.6%, Very concerned = 10.0%, Extremely concerned = 18.0%

2. Aboriginal background: Not at all concerned = 70.1%, Extremely concerned = 3.5%

3. Asian background: Not at all concerned = 73%, Extremely concerned = 2.5%

(Fallacy – Antonios’ example: "...they forgot to ask for the Jews? I SUPPOSED THEY TRY TO HIDE THE TRUTH ABOUT THE RACISM AGAINST JEWS!”)

Fact – The Survey DOES include Jews:

4. Result: Jewish Faith: Not at all concerned = 74.3%, Extremely concerned = 2.5%

(Those opposed to inter marriages: NSW = 12.9% - nation’s highest)

Fact – Sydney Survey:

“More specifically, southern Europeans
(mainly from Italy, Greece and the former
Yugoslavia) have the highest level of intolerance
towards racial intermarriage, an aspect of
the ‘old’ racism, with those from north-east
Asia not much more tolerant.”

Sydney is the focus of international migration to Australia even though NSW has the highest rate of unemployment in the nation thus the highest population - 7 million inhabitants thus the highest net loss of people escaping to overload other states.

Sydney’s inhabitants object to Antonios' proposal to exacerbate their already overloaded population. This has little to do with race but all to do with infrastructure, resource and ecological limits, public health and a reasonable standard of living for everyone. A decrease in population mitigates the number of people sleeping rough in cardboard boxes.

Bigots who publically obfuscate the equally (if not greater) racist attitudes of ethnic groups and who set themselves up as a crusader for those groups, perpetuate racial disunity and remain a dangerous obstacle towards achieving a racially harmonious nation for all Australians.

http://news.in.msn.com/international/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3037334

Master,
You really are a fool given to wild and incorrect statements.

COME IN, COME MY GOOD REFUGEES, THIS CUNTRY IS OURS AND YOURS, ALL TEMPORARY VISITORS ON THIS PLANET! Antonios 10-7-09 (this thread)
He also stated he was an internationalist.

You can do your own research on the rest

Pied piper,
After posting, I wondered if I should have also asked you the questions. You seem also to advocate an open immigration policy.

So should we allow the groups with alien cultural practices to immigrate or not? Knowing full well that some cultural practices are almost impossible to change.

Are you aware that we do not even keep stats on the number of forced marriages taking place here annually, but using population figures, I estimate about 1000 per annum. No stats kept on FGM either as gov doesn't want to know. Nice way to spent the long holiday for Aussie girls, With pieces of flesh hacked off and legs bound together until scar tissue grows?

We have enough bad cultural practices of our own and do not need to import more.

It is a funny thing this internet Antonios, everything is more secret now but if we were in the street I bet we would stop and have a loud conversation and not care who hears us.

I have no tactics or plan just usually my first response and often not thoroughly thought out. Except if I feel annoyed, then they will get my second response with the bad words removed.

But I do see everyone as real and not often do I think that maybe they are just playing or not being honest.

You keep hunting and I’ll look after the chicks.

Master, I can say that I have known many Muslims, found them to be like anyone else (bit cleaner to tell the truth). Not as annoying as those people that come knocking on doors. You probably don’t strike many of those where you are.

Banjo, ones culture can change swiftly, depends how umm, firm the culture is where you land. But things like in Salt Lake City or something where they have about 40,000 men with multiple wives and marrying their daughters off as children. Stuff like that, as you said, already happens.

Watched a weird one on TV yesterday… to be a man in some tribe they had to feed a loop of cane like plant and swallow it then bring it back up – would stop the evil of women staying in them (Anti and Rusty might have tried it). Don’t think your average Aussie would enjoy knowing young men were forced to do that either.

It’s all tricky, needs thought… but not thrown in the “too hard” basket.

Antonios

Here is the breakdown of birthplace groups interviewed in the Sydney survey:

Question: “It’s not good for people of different races to intermarry”:

Agreed:

Australian = 11.9%
American = 10.9%
Sth and Sth East Asia = 13.9%
North East Asia = 17.4%
Southern Europe = 20.8%
Middle East = 12.1%

Only the Americans are less racist than the Australian born. For this question (which is the one you raised) all other nationalities are more racist than the Australian born.

Who precisely are you referring to when you say “Australians” are racist?

One really does have to wonder about the intellectual capacity of some contributors, poor old Banjo in this case.

Let's examine the first part of his post at the top of this page:

Banjo said, "You really are fool given to wild and incorrect statements". That was in reply to my challenge to him to show where Antonios had issued an open invitation to anyone who want's to come here without regard to their character or cultural practice (a charge levied against Antonios by the sanctimonious Banjo).

Then Banjo produced his "proof", which was an Antonios quote which said, "Come in, come my good refugees, this country is ours and yours, all temporary visitors on this planet." Banjo then said Antonios was an "internationalist".

Now - - - -

According to the clearly, incredibly stupid Banjo, these words by Antonios mean that Antonios wants refugees here "WITHOUT REGARD TO THEIR CHARACTER OR CULTURAL PRACTICE".

Umm Banjo ol' cobber, I think you DESPERATELY need remedial lessons in English comprehension. I guess our education system just fails some people!

Also dear Banjo, I'm still waiting for your list of current cultures who are interested in migrating to Australia, who embrace pedophilia and incest as a cultural "NORMAL PRACTICE" (your words).

So now banjo you have 2 tasks to accomplish:

(1)Apologise to Antonios for your false charge

(2)Answer my query regarding your refugee pedophilia and incest accusations.

Pied piper,
You are difficult to get a direct answer from. I sympathies with your hubby on this, but am sure you have many other chacteristics that are not frustrating and very admirable.

Can I assume that you are in agreement that some groups, that have proven alien, or unlawful, cultural practices should not be allowed to immigrate here. I am talking only about the practices that are against our laws and have shown not to change.

You mentioned poligomy and I did not because I am not sure about it. Poligomy seems more honest than a married person having an affair, but I think the first wife is the big loser. Then I suppose we should reject him on the grounds of stupidity. (male joke) I imagine how much it would cost me if they both went clothes shopping together. Talking of which,I saw an article about a woman may get 40 strokes because she was wearing trousers, in some Nth African country, I think.

“You are difficult to get a direct answer from. I sympathies with your hubby on this, but am sure you have many other chacteristics that are not frustrating and very admirable.”

You are never to meet my husband Banjo, he believes he is the only that thinks this! I suspect my admirable qualities he is not frustrated by may well be of the more physical.

“Can I assume that you are in agreement that some groups, that have proven alien, or unlawful, cultural practices should not be allowed to immigrate here. I am talking only about the practices that are against our laws and have shown not to change.”

Yes, if they wont change/aka criminal kick them out.

“You mentioned polygamy and I did not because I am not sure about it. Polygamy seems more honest than a married person having an affair, but I think the first wife is the big loser. Then I suppose we should reject him on the grounds of stupidity. (male joke) I imagine how much it would cost me if they both went clothes shopping together. Talking of which,I saw an article about a woman may get 40 strokes because she was wearing trousers, in some Nth African country, I think.”

I so could not remember that word. Polygamy. I think my point with that one was how they also hand their daughters over very young which is against the culture of the country they are probably the 30th generation of.

40 strokes you say? North Africa is going light… I imagine the middle east would take a harsher view. I am guessing she knew the law of the land.

I’m going to go cook dinner now and I am wearing jeans, thank goodness for Oz. It is legal here aye…?

“Then Banjo produced his "proof", which was an Antonios quote which said, "Come in, come my good refugees, this country is ours and yours, all temporary visitors on this planet." Banjo then said Antonios was an "internationalist".

”Now - - - -

”According to the clearly, incredibly stupid Banjo, these words by Antonios mean that Antonios wants refugees here "WITHOUT REGARD TO THEIR CHARACTER OR CULTURAL PRACTICE".

Master

A presumption needs to be based on some sort of evidence otherwise one can look pretty arrogant (and stoopid!) Therefore you have accused someone else of “stupidity” on a mere supposition. Are you able to show us where Antonios stated that his invitation to “all temporary visitors on the planet” was conditional?

Perhaps it is you who needs to “apologise to (XAntoniosX) Banjo for your false charge?”

Ludwig: << Go right ahead and degrade what would otherwise be a reasonable debate. Go right ahead and keep doing what hundreds of posters have criticised you for. >>

That's a brilliant effort at "reasonable discussion", Ludwig. This thread has been no more a "reasonable debate" than is a shock jock talkback radio program. And "hundreds of posters"? You do get carried away sometimes...

I haven't said that you are xenophobic or racist - but I have pointed out how your personal obsession about 'boat people' leads you to engage in much of the same baseless and paranoid conjecture that our resident bigots do. I've also made my position perfectly clear, i.e. that I disagree with your conclusion that treating humanely asylum seekers who arrive in Australia by boat will inevitably lead to many more coming for that reason.

To reiterate, I base my conclusion on such evidence as is available, while yours (like that of the bigots) is a product of a confabulation of worst-case suppositions. I don't know why it is that you think it's justifiable to imprison people for the 'crime' of lawfully seeking asylum in Australia, thereby invariably exacerbating the suffering that they endure.

That's one of the reasons that I think you must be misanthropic in disposition - combined, of course, with what I've gleaned from your posts over the years. No offence intended, but I think you're morally and legally wrong about 'boat people', and no argument you've yet put has altered that assessment.

Belly - with all due respect, what is the source of your "million" speculation, other than your own fertile imagination?

Banjo and Horus - no respect due. You're part of that minority racist underbelly that diminishes us all as Australians.

The Pied Piper
"It is a funny thing this internet Antonios, everything is more secret now but if we were in the street I bet we would stop and have a loud conversation and not care who hears us"
No my friend in the internet every one knows what we say, every one can make a copy from what we say, every one can use them as a proof, as an evident against us if and when they want.
There are some persons who would like to create problems to me You know my friend I have to be carefull, to control my steps and plan my moves. Try to understand me.
The Pied Piper about you I do not feel very proud when I have to tell the truth in doses, or not all the truth, when I want to ask something but I can not, you remember with my child. I thank you very much for everything, I want to be very good with you as you are with me. My friend the forums are not for personal or family issues, it is not that I do not trust you, that I try to hide something from you, simple I do not like to publish on the forums my personal or my family issues, your personal or your family issues. I am not a liar to you, I am ready to give you my email address if you want and be sure I will be 1000% honest. Try to understand me.
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

I thought that Banjo took the forum's prize for sheer stupidity with some of those recent posts, but I now notice Protagoras is now striving for the stupidity prize (a two week holiday in Afghanistan).

Protagoras asks, "Are you able to show us where Antonios stated that his invitation to "all temporary visitors on the planet" was conditional"?

Master replies: Gee Protagoras, your reading comprehension is in even a greater state of crisis than Banjo's.

Firstly: The invitation was NOT to "all temporary visitors on the planet". The invitation was to "refugees". He then went on to describe people as "temporary visitors to the planet" (which is true - - - that's what we all are "temporary visitors to the planet". Antonios was NOT inviting EVERYBODY on the planet.

Secondly: Protagoras, do you know what the word "GOOD" means? Obviously not! Antonios wrote, come in my "good" refugees. He didn't say come in "all" refugees, or come in refugees "who practice pedophilia etc etc".

Protagoras, you must be INCREDIBLY STUPID if you "genuinely" think (which of course you don't - - you're just playing a game with this) that Antonios, because he didn't extensively qualify the moral standards of the refugees in his off the cuff symbolic invitation, would like to welcome to this country - - - - -pedophiles, incest lovers, genital mutilators, wife murderers, wife bashers etc etc. as the equally stupid Banjo "IMPLIED" with his bigoted, dumb set of questions.

Banjo and Protagoras have shown via their recent posts that they are just like the typical MINORITY of Australians who FEAR DIFFERENCE. A MINORITY who are only too ready to point out the absolute worst in human nature and attribute it to refugees and migrants.

Refugees and migrants built this country initially, and have continued to build it throughout it's ENTIRE history.

Refugees and migrants have historically shown that they are no better or no worse than the people already here.

Refugees and migrants make FANTASTIC citizens of Australia.

All achieved despite the small mindedness of MINORITY opposition

Good to be back pied piper, still humming that song.
Make No mistake, I fully understand it is not race but culture and mostly religion that drives the concerns I share.
However tell me it is wrong to be concerned about numbers too.
The thread can not ignore culture and faith, it however is about numbers, how many will come, can we handle it, is it fair to those in camps who wait.
AS is no doubt self assured my concern is his confidence is sadly miss placed.
I challenge us all, to think are we racist?
I can not name one race that I even dislike, but several cultures concern me, I once as far left as you can get, still am stumped by my ex brothers and sisters blindness to females treatment in some cultures.
Let us get back to the debate, forget masters blindness to facts, this country, the world must confront world wide refugees are a problem.
What do we do?
Rubbish about building this country into something it never can be, home of hundreds of millions? is not an answer.
If we drop the fence, let those who want entry come, isn't it clear the numbers will increase very many times?
Spare me the racism claims, it is not wrong to fear for your country's future.
Again first get rid of all religion, what else holds men apart so very much apart.

I think we all, every one of us, divert threads often.
I do so now, while my respect and understanding of C J Morgan is forever he shows why I am from center unity ALP not the true left.
Yes know CJM is from the greens, to me that is left of reality.
From that group great gains have been named, great ideas great wins for my class, working.
But in migration and so much more a stampede away from reality and the mainstream is still under way.
I walked the Sydney harbor bridge for reconciliation, recorded Rudd's sorry speech and still replace it with pride and damp eyes.
Still find the then oppositions leaders speech so very unwise so dreadfully done and grin in pride at those who turned their backs on him.
My est mates are not Australian born, in any lunch shed my first gday mate is always to the quietest usually from another country.
I learned to live, yes a raw country kid, by being the only Aussie working in a crew .
I am not racist.
I am very much anti SOME from SOME cultures some religions, not in any way ashamed of it.
The left tells me I and my party have sold out.
No my ALP my prime minister and yes me, are the new left, the understanding reality Left, as far left as mainstream Australia wants to go.
one million? open the gates and stand back, see an open gate could be tempting.
Labor ill never be as cruel as Howard but they will and must be firm,
C J Morgan do you know I would house, yes give up my privacy, any migrant boat or not free?
I would give half my income if it would help, we all should look for a answer in my view it starts with ending dreadful governments and we fail without helping remove them.

Lovely to see you around Belly, I wish I could stop these irrational thoughts that a user is dead soon as they disappear for awhile.

Belly on all practical levels of course you should be concerned about numbers. But what appears over and over is a concern from people about quality not quantity. And the answer to the question of quantity always seems a bit miserly.

Why not a country a hundred million strong?

I wouldn’t suggest dropping fences but probably placing some decent gates in them. More education on entry maybe. Even there I don’t know what I am talking about – I don’t know how Aussie introduces its refuges to the country or what it has in place as a means of introduction to Australian culture and law.

Maybe less faith in government and more faith in your country is required. You gasped didn't you.[smile]

Good luck with getting rid of religion, new ones are still popping up and I am guessing the old ones continue to be revised.

Antonios, goodness sakes, I was a bit slow on the uptake. The e-mail I am using is jewelypiper@gmail.com

Interesting report in the media quoting Dr Khalid Koser from the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, who has been looking at the impact of the economic crisis on asylum seekers and migration, and believes it has contributed to the recent spike in unauthorised boat arrivals to Australia.

Dr Kozer went on to say that 'rising unemployment in South-East Asia had seen a rise in the number of ``desperate'' people willing to make the journey to Australia'.

http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,25782114-948,00.html

In another report, this time in The Australian, Dr Kozer said that people smuggling was a sideline of legitimate travel businesses in Kabul and Peshawar, Pakistan - two of the principal sources of Australia-bound asylum-seekers and was dominated by 10 to 20 smugglers who offered a money back guarantee on arrival in Australia.

He added that 'there were significant financial incentives for refugees to use people-smugglers to travel to the West, with refugees able to double their family's household income within a few years.' Sounds like the refugees are interested and aware before travel of their likely prospects in 'host' countries. Only to be expected of course.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25784292-25837,00.html

Always good to get some independent opinion, especially from a world renowned expert who is in Australia to brief government.

“That's a brilliant effort at ‘reasonable discussion’, Ludwig”

Firstly CJ, I was just saying what needed to be said to you and what was long overdue. You’ve driven me to make those strong comments. I was reluctant to do so…for a long time.

Secondly, yes it was a solid and forthright attempt to engender some reasonable discussion with you on this thread.

“This thread has been no more a ‘reasonable debate’ than is a shock jock talkback radio program.”

So, if it is of that low a quality, what are you doing on it then, posting at great frequency?? It could be a better debate if you picked up your standard!

“And ‘hundreds of posters’? You do get carried away sometimes...”

Yep, you’re probably right. It would have to be at least 200 posters to constitute ‘hundreds’. It probably hasn’t yet exceeded 199, but it must be close! /:>)

“I don't know why it is that you think it's justifiable to imprison people for the 'crime' of lawfully seeking asylum in Australia, thereby invariably exacerbating the suffering that they endure.”

Firstly, ‘imprison’ and ‘crime’ are emotive and highly inappropriate words as you use them here.

Secondly, if you don’t know why I am against the free movement of asylum seekers in Australian society and therefore in favour of detention, and why there absolutely needs to be a strong deterrence factor and therefore an unfortunate but necessary balance between the good treatment of asylum seekers and upholding the deterrence factor, then I’ll have to give up on you.

This is the exact stuff that I’ve gone to much trouble too explain, in dozens of posts on numerous threads on this forum over the last three years, often in debate with you!!