The Government must put a stop to this back-door immigration and private ‘colleges’ offering courses to facilitate an easy way to the permanent residence for people not needed by Australia. Indians do not need to come to Australia to learn to cook, wait on tables or drive taxis.

But, when the current government recently decided to cut back on low-skilled immigration, the Opposition decried the only good move Labor has made on immigration. If that’s not opposition just for the sake of opposition, it’s hard to know what is.

If we really need skilled immigrants – because both major parties refused to skill our own people – then the skilled immigrants should already be skilled before they are considered as immigrants; they should be able to speak any understand good English, and have a job to go to in Australia

Permanent residency for international students was scrapped last Monday. A new protocol will be developed in July.

Another of the big groups coming into Australia in this manner have been Koreans. Firstly, many come to Australia to work as fruit and vegetable pickers. While doing so they save money to pay for English and vocational education with the hope of then establishing residency.
Many already have university degrees, so after several years in Australia working as unskilled labour and doing vocational courses, they finally obtain citizenship and then set out to pursue a real career. These will become the young parents of Australian born children, educated in our universities. Like the European immigrants of the post war years, these Koreans will be an asset to Australia.

Lohita,please dont go all paranoid.There is no real targetting of Indian students in Australia. Some unfortunately just happen to be there where anti-social elements are out looking for trouble. If Indian students werent in Australia these attacks would still go on.These hoons are invading the homes of the elderly as well as car-jacking whites and beating them up.It goes with the territory.
Please consider -
1 When there were just 100 students in a populaation of 20 million the probability is that none of them would get attacked.
2 When the numbers explode and there are over 100,000 all over the place the probability is that some of them are going to get hit sooner or later. It's not racism, its pure maths.
If you dont like it then instead of provocative statements that would only imcrease that probability of getting attacked more often, why not simply go home.

socratease

I'd like a few words with those 'geniuses' in the Howard government who thought up this harebrained immigration/education scheme,however the damage has been done.The government should compensate those Indian students in Australia for the financial losses they incurred and pay their fares back to India.

Maybe the 'racial' targeting is all in the framing by the media and by the Indian government playing politics:

http://isamaa.tv/report/2010-01-10-racial-attacks-on-indians-in-australia-or-an-ugly-propaganda/

I have worked in our tertiary education system over the past twenty years and have watched it be corrupted by this 'Education Industry' ethos. Keating saw overseas students as a quiet diplomacy, with the hope that, once being educated here, there would be a greater exchange in business between compatible entrepreneurial and mercantile classes, but it was the Howard government that turned our educational services into a money machine. Also, since the Liberals have always been for an immigration system that brings a constant flow of cheap labour into the country, the backdoor residency scheme was not just an unfortunate oversight,
I have seen academics in tears, forced to pass people who really did not qualify. I have even overheard a university security guard counseling an asian student on how to successfully appeal if he did fail. I know an academic who resigned rather than pass a whole class who simply failed, and saw his supervisor remarking the papers as he left. I have worked with an asian postgraduate in whom I found no evidence of the learning required by the qualification and it became self-evident that residency was their family goal.
I am saddened and angered by this eating of the golden goose, and further distressed that these poor people have become vulnerable targets, both for the unscrupulous vultures that gather round all such honey pots and the resentment of other groups bouncing around on the bottom of our society.
If we wish to restore out tertiary education system to a fragment of its former rigor and excellence, where learning took pride of place, we need to stem the tide of vocationalism that has swept aside the maxims of knowledge for the sake of itself, and learning as a moral good that once underpinned it.

I'll second the "education as industry" story. Standards dropped and income became everything under Howard. Academics were discouraged from being independent and a new breed of "management" took over. Like the local councils, the new "managers" come from the psychopath school of living. It is also true that industry lobbied government to allow cheap labour into the country to avoid paying market rates. This labour market distortion is typical of the Howard regime.
The Indian government and press were very silly to play into the racist hands by over-reacting to the Indian attacks. The article describes the true situation quite well: Huge numbers of naive students coming here under difficult conditions. If you do the maths, it is highly unlikely that any systematic "racism" is involved.

An excellent [although sad] account of a part of the immigration policies and criteria laid down by "both" parties Dr Merlyn. These immigration policies and criteria existed long before John Howard served. The skilled migration project has been in the pipeline and worked on and over for many years.

Indian families, in all fairness, are notorious for pushing their children into top notch careers and hold high expectations of them. The Government is not to be blamed for the pressures placed upon students, by their parents, to choose degrees out of their depth for studying.

Lohit Shandilya's article has the ring of truth. However, to the extent that the attacks are something more than opportunistic crime, I suspect that the real issue is immigration as an instrument of class warfare rather than racism, that there would be just as much hostility if the "students" came from Scotland rather than India.

These migrants in the guise of students have been moving in large numbers into areas where they are competing with already disadvantaged existing residents, both native-born and migrants themselves, for jobs, housing, public services, and amenities. Even the most enthusiastic population boosters admit that more people contribute to crowding in the cities, high housing costs, and additional pressure on the environment. The government's own Measuring Australia's Progress reports have shown progressive deterioration in every environmental indicator except urban air quality.

There is also no evidence, based on a large number of studies, that mass migration is of any significant economic benefit to average non-elite citizens in the host society and much evidence that it hurts the people at the bottom. From p. 318 of our own 2006 Productivity Commission report on immigration: "Although there is an income loss for the base-case [host] population . . . there might (also) be significant distributional effects . . . Individuals relying on wage income tend to lose and individuals relying more on capital income tend to gain from increases in skilled immigration."

Stats are right here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zKoluh0eh4

Conclusion: The number of incidents reported in the Indian media don't even come close to 1% of the expected number of assaults victimizing Indians in Australia if crime were, on-average, colour-blind.

In other words, the Indian media lies when it says that by the number of attacks itself, there is "obviously" a pattern of racist violence.

Also see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-glx_bh4xc for the hypocrisy of the Indian media in this affair.

And more on the deceptive Indian media coverage here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDIbS04rM24

Again today another Indian is arrested for murdering two other indians by stabbing, yes stabbing them to death. Stabbings were very rare years ago in Australia before we had these 3rd world migrants. Keep bringing in 3rd world migrants and Australia will basically become a 3rd world country.

Why are Indian students being targeted in Australia?
Well in the last few months I can remember 4 Indians that have been murdered in Australia. 3 of these were killed by Indians and we still don't know the nationality of the other killer. Maybe, just maybe we should be asking-
Why are Indians killing so many people in Australia?

Quite right,Ozzie.
Yesterday three Indian students living together had a fall out over money and two brothers died in a fight about 3 am. The Indian student who killed the brothers, were the only children of Indian parents. Very sad, but it was a case of Indians preying on each other. We need to ascertain the truth over even the so-called muggings. There are groups of Indian students from different parts of India who will attack each other. Northern indians, especially those from hariyana, cannt stand southern Tamils.

socratease

Thanks Lohit it’s interesting to hear your opinion as an Australian resident of Indian heritage. I learnt a lot from your article.

I think immigration is an important issue because over the next couple of decades the number of elderly (non-taxpaying) Australians will be the biggest proportion of our population and this will create a huge tax burden for the nation. It seems obvious that we could use an equally huge influx of healthy, industrious young people into the areas of vocational training where there are currently shortages (hair dressing, hospitality, butchery, plumbing and many of the building trades to mention just a few).

I say clean up these ‘educational scams’ for sure so that all international students gain properly recognized qualifications; but we shouldn't shut the door on what could be the easiest answerer to our top heavy population problem. Australia needs a bigger population of tax payers than it can grow at home.

Lohit,let's see if you are really serious about your concern for the safety of Indian students. Do you really want to know why Indian students are/were attacked in melbourne?
Why not contact the Indian-Australian Business men's Association and ask the President for a reply.
I have been informed by a senior member of the organization (I may have got the exact name of the organization wrong,but never mind !)whose name I cannot divulge without his permission. He told me that they have tried to interest the Victorian Premier and Minister of Police with the names of the Indian students who are responsible for the attacks and many other anti-social acts of a criminal nature. But they werent interested.No one in authority really want to know.Indian students are preying on each other. many "students" on student visas have forged them or bribed to get them. Bribery is an occupational feature of Indian bureaurcracy.

OK, so now make contact and ask the hard questions,Lohit.

socratease

Janette: "It seems obvious that we could use an equally huge influx of healthy, industrious young people into the areas of vocational training where there are currently shortages (hair dressing, hospitality, butchery, plumbing and many of the building trades to mention just a few)."

Yes, to someone worried only about their immediate future it would see obvious. What better way to fix the problem than to import some a phalanx of youngsters to look after you in your dotage.

If you looked slightly longer into the future though it might not seem so obvious. Who is going to look after that now larger cohort of young people once they grow old? Maybe we just import an even larger phalanx of youngsters to look after them. Rinse, lather and repeat - growing the population every time.

Obviously such a solution isn't sustainable in the long run. We have to find a way to address to ageing population problem without growing the population. Well, we don't have to, as right now we could sustain a population growth. But if we don't fix it now our kids will have to, so in effect we are just pushing the problem onto to them. Why shouldn't we be the ones to fix it? After all, we are generation that created the problem.

As for the topic at hand, assuming lol's stats are accurate s/he nailed it. There isn't a Indian violence problem. Well if there is one, it is the media making a mountain out of a mole hill.

For a start, Indian students are not being targeted, many poeple travel alone at night and also get robbed and/or assaulted.

Second, Australian tourists get assualted, robbed, even kidnapped and murdered every year in India. Our athletes are not safe to play sport there.

So what does it mean when a particular ethnic group claims racism where there is none. This same group comes from a culture where via the caste system and other, discrimnination due to birth is considered normal. They come from a culture where there is a wealthy middle class the size of the US, yet the rest of the country is in poverty due to severe lack of sharing through decent taxes.

The fact that the Indian students complain about something normal (being assaulted/robbed late at night if the victim is well dressed and alone), to me shows that they believe they are overly important (probably due to the fact that they are wealthy in their homeland) and extremely racist/tribal in all their thinking, since they approach these attacks full of bias and prejudices and false facts about this nation.

India professes to have enacted legislation to make casteism illegal yet it flourishes in every state in every town and you only have to rerad the daily newspapers you'll see evidence of it in advertising for marriage partners. Casteism is alive and well in India. For such a country to scream that Australia is a racist country is sheer hypocrisy. For Indian students here to echo the same hypocritical cries is equally hypocritical. I have spoken to Indian students here in Perth who work in our service stations and supermarkets and NOT ONE has accused us of being racists. Some have even suggested there is another hidden agenda behind the whole issue emanating from India.
They have even admitted they they have evidence of Indians preying on Indians. Many so-called Indian students have got here on "student visas" but have not turned up at any colleges or universities. It needs looking into.Our government is partly to blame for its sheer incompetence.

socratease

Here's another Indian enriching us with his cultural practices. http://makingmulticulturalaustralia.blogspot.com/2010/02/indian-taxi-driver-bashes-aussie.html

How is that a cultural practice? When a white Australian beats up another white Australian is that cultural practice or just an instance of crime just like the example that you gave? Why use one crime committed by one person to tar an entire nation? Isn't that why we're saying that Australia isn't a racist country despite the attacks on Indian students? Or do you just have a remarkably obtuse sense of irony?

I think the guy who runs that blog is a bit of a dill. He clearly has issues. I'll stick with mainstream news reports instead.

David you have written,

“Why use one crime committed by one person to tar an entire nation?”
I don’t believe I have done that. My post states “here’s another Indian...” Thus if you look a few posts back I gave other examples of 4 recent murders of Indian people in Australia which have been played out in much of the media as racist attacks by white Australians. I find this insulting. I have stated that 3 of those Indians were in fact murdered by fellow Indians. The other murderer has not yet been found so we cannot say what nationality he/she is. I agree with you that we cannot paint a picture of the whole country from just 1 incident. However after we have 1 incident, then another, then another, then another, you need to start to ask questions to see if there is any connection. And yet still there are many other incidents not involving murders, such as the young Indian man who burnt himself in an insurance scam and tried to blame it on 4 male Australians, who apparently in an unprovoked attack threw petrol over him and set him alight. There are many more incidents

So you have a sum total of 5 crimes by Indians and that is apparently enough to condemn a nation of 1.3 billion? There have been many crimes of assault, murder etc committed by white people. Does that amount to a trend which can be attributed to culture or are these just crimes for which certain individuals are responsible?

How do you like that? You've been out-argued by a "bogan" female lawyer.

Lucy,
Again you fail to understand simple Primary school maths. In a country dominated by white people you would expect that of 4 murders, most would be committed by white people. Now consider there are approximately less than 1 million Indians in Australia ( likely an over estimate), that equates to around 1/20 or less. Thus you only expect 1 in every 20 murderers to be Indian. But here I have given you the Stats for the most recent murders of Indians (I did not choose these, the Australian and Indian media did, they are all of the recent murders I know of, if you know of others please correct me), and at least 75% (possibly even 100%)have been committed by Indians. The likehood of that happening is very small, unless there is something else going on. What could account for it?
Also the article title relates to "Why are Indian students being targeted in Australia", so that's why we are specifically looking at violence against Indians. The media has made this out to be racist white Australians as the cause. Yet the examples clearly suggest an alternate explanation. If you want to discuss white crime I suggest you start another threat. I would be more than willing to discuss it with you, but this topic is about violence against Indians. White Australians are by no means free of violence, yet they are clearly not responsible for the crimes mentioned here which they are being blamed for.

Yawn....

That's right,Lucy,yawn. It's the most intelligent response you've made so far. There's hope for you yet....I think.

socratease

Lucy, here is another example of violent crime against Indians. Check out the report http://www.theage.com.au/national/long-jail-terms-for-doctors-attackers-20091118-iml2.html on who exactly attacked the past president of the AMA. See if the attackers were Anglo Aussies, I don't think so. And who exactly was it that killed (by stabbing in the neck) another doctor in Melbourne a few years ago? could it have been Anglo Aussies again. No, it was a Sudanese guy, Samuel Benjamin. I will leave it to you to search this one. Hopefully you are able to do that at least.

Fancy running into you here Ozzie!! I note that you're posting another misleading comment about "ethnic" crime. One minute is Indians as the perpetrators now its Indians as the victims. Never any admission that crime is committed by people of all ethnicities and that its causes are complex but not racial.

Now here are some cases involving crime by Anglo-Australians.

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/nsw/NSWCCA/2010/3.html
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/nsw/NSWCCA/2010/1.html
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/nsw/NSWCCA/2010/13.html

Enjoy

David wrote

"Fancy running into you here Ozzie!! I note that you're posting another misleading comment about "ethnic" crime. One minute is Indians as the perpetrators now its Indians as the victims."

Yes David, this whole article is concerning crime against indians, so that's why I have written about Indians as victims. And I have included Indians as perpetrators as many of these Indian victims are in fact the victims of Indian perpetrators. Much of the media tries continuously to blame ordinary Anglo Aussies as being responsible for much of this crime. However the examples above demnstrate that of the 4 indians recently murdered in Australia, 3 of them were murdered by Indians (do you actually dispute this fact?). The remaining murderer we do not know the nationality of yet. Exactly how is pointing out this fact misleading? I consider it misleading to try hiding this fact, as you continually attempt to.

David also wrote.....

"Never any admission that crime is committed by people of all ethnicities and that its causes are complex but not racial."

Well now that's absolutely false. Just above I stated

"White Australians are by no means free of violence, yet they are clearly not responsible for the crimes mentioned here which they are being blamed for."

David, crime is in fact committed by all different ethnicities and does have many complex causes. However, in no way does that mean all ethnicities commit crime at the same rates.

To state again, the examples above clearly demonstrate 3 out of 4 recent Indians murdered in Australia were in fact murdered by fellow Indians. FACT. You may try all you want to mislead others about this David but that will not change it.

David to prove your point, please feel free to give numerous examples of Indians killed in Australia by Anglo Aussies. Don't hold back, hit me with as many as you want. I will be expecting maybe 30-40 examples.

Cont'd

The other 2 examples above are recent Medical Practitioners that were killed or violently assaulted. One was Indian. None of the perpetrators was Anglo Aussie. One Indian Doctor (past president of the AMA) was violently assaulted and it was well publicized initially in the papers as a racist assault without mentioning that the perpetrators were in fact not Anglo Aussies. When the truth comes out months later in the papers after sentencing there is little mention of the nationality of the attackers, maybe a small few lines on page 12.
The last example is of an extremely violent knife attack against a migrant doctor, being stabbed in the neck continually. Again little mention in the media of the attackers nationality, until months later, and again only a brief word. Yet I here you say why point to a perpetrators particular nationality, to which I reply, then why identify the victims nationality.
There is absolutely no harm in knowing all of the facts, provided those facts are interpreted correctly. There is harm when people such as you David attempt to blind people by hiding facts and shifting blame. Lets have all the facts laid open. We no longer live in the dark ages.

David,

Here is another case for you and your politically correct friends.

Gurshan Singh, a 3yr Indian, another racist attack?

I don't think so.

Look it up again the murderer is INDIAN.

Enjoy.

So now it is not 3 out of the last 4 Indians in Australia being murdered by Indians. It is 4 out of 5. Yes, 4 out of the last 5 Indians murdered in Australia have in fact been murdered by Indians. The other murderer has not been found yet. Maybe he/she too will be Indian. Do we really need this violence in Australia?

Stop your lies and deceit David.

Oh, and to answer Lohit's question,

"Why are Indian students being targeted in Australia?"

Seems the murderer of 3 yr old Gurshan is a student as well (well on a student visa anyway, which just means he is trying to buy his way into Australia).

So Lohit, keeping the lies coming.

It may be interesting to observe the record of the total of those of Indian heritage who have met death by homicide or misadventure in Australia, for comparison of the percentage of that number identified as caused by people also Indian. For it may not be overlooked of the convenient and expedient opportunity it would realise for Australia, relevant to the current international furore and embarrassment to the Victorian, and Australian Govts, of this ‘Indian’ issue, not to mention the economic contraction it has realised in the associated area of education participation.

Add to that the record of the scandalous corruption observed surrounding Victoria [Vic.] Police, and there exists the potential for a gripping crime mystery novel.

The potential extent of corruption attributed to Victoria Police, may be exemplified of the exodus of its members to Queensland [Qld] Police, post the Fitzgerald Inquiry, where eventually the Victorian Govt found it necessary to withdraw Victorian Police members entitlements, if they did not serve Victoria for a determined period.

The Fitzgerald enquiry may be remembered as the scandal which imprisoned the Police Commissioner of that State. Senior ranking officers of Qld Police are known to have served in recent years, in high ranking positions of the Freemasons in Qld.

Serious scandals of corruption within high levels of Victoria Police, may be observed similarly consistent of their frequency over a period of at least the last two decades, therefore the potential for it to be protecting racist criminal elements is possible.

The increasing international reputation of Australia as a racist pariah state, adds further credibility to such potential, with institution of Govt polices such as the Northern Intervention, in contravention of international conventions signed by Australia, and suspension of its racial discrimination regulation, further disturbing relevant to this issue.

Therefore, for the racists who congregate like parasites on OLO, to post their rampant bigotry in defence of perception that is patently indefensible of its appearance, is as incredulous as it is disturbingly incomprehensible.

Ngarmada
try and distinguish between the shortcomings of a supposedly corrupt police force in Victoria and the issue of racism. You are choking on your bile and its causing incoherence. Inherent in your blog is the anger about the way things are turning out for some Indians who live there in Vic. There is clear evidence of Indians preying on Indians. Four so-called racist murders and three caused by Indians. The fourth hasnt yet been solved.
A wider issue is the corrupt practice of forging of passports by Indians. There is an epidemic of corruption but its about sneaking into the country by bribery and forgery. You have been hoisted on your own petard, and must be feeling pretty stupid. You have opened a can of worms,pal.

socratease