Great writing Fiona. Congratulations on your book.

@Pericles: I am fairly certain that if the author were my daughter, I'd be immensely proud of her enthusiasm for "the cause".

The ebook is only 20,000 words, which I take it you haven't read. Until you do your words look like pure sophistry.

You dishonour your nick, Pericles.

Ah yes. The book. Thanks for introducing it, iDreamofjeanie.

>>Great writing Fiona. Congratulations on your book<<

It is of course entirely traditional that students should go through a "property is theft" phase, before they are forced to come to grips with basic economics. And necessary too, that any form of commerce is depicted as inherently evil.

Although one must try to avoid scoring an own-goal if possible.

"...the university system is profiteering from, and exploiting [international students]"

It will eventually dawn on Ms Heinrichs that the "profiteering" and "exploiting" that the universities conduct is largely for her benefit. It allows them to keep her own fees low, and also to employ better qualified lecturers who would otherwise gravitate to more serious institutions overseas. That outcome would also introduce to her the concept of irony, somewhat forcibly.

In keeping with the essentially undergraduate theme, business is represented as the root of all evil. Especially in the language used.

Major Australian businesses are described as "rulers of our destiny".

This is not presented as a good thing, however. We find that they "howled with rage and pain" when the prospect of lower immigration was raised before the last election. Those individuals who see growth opportunities for Australia "gleefully advocate" them. And of course, solutions can be found, we are told, "with a few crumbs from the rich cake Australian corporates have".

All of which confirms the mythology held by all students, that big business is perpetually and uniformly rapacious, and eternally greedy.

Actually, it has to be said that the writing style rather falls apart, the further one reads into the book. By the time you get to the paragraph headed "Conclusion: Immigration as a Political Weapon of Class War", there is little left except a soap-box. As for the final paragraph of Chapter 4, even the soap-box is insufficient. A Nürnberg Rally would be required to do it justice.

But I certainly must agree that overall, the writing isn't bad. The ideas will polish themselves in the years to come.

You revive my hope for humanity Fiona...the next trick is to find more young ones with your sense and the ability to record and publish.

Well done Fiona!
A useful and well researched contribution to the debate. We need to hear more from people like you.

Great stuff Fiona. Never mind Pericles the Patronizing - if he was my father I'd move into an orphanage. There are lots of instant experts who don't read past the first paragraph. This great mind didn't spot the link to your book until iDreamofjeanie mentioned it. Of course his generation didn't get slugged with uni fees, which were only re-introduced to pay for middle class welfare and corporate tax cuts.