Ah spindoc by moniker and by nature.

Lets have a look at the recent Adel Uni survey which tracked both refugees and their Oz born children.

It found that while refugees found it harder to get work in the short term, the situation improved over time. The reason many initially found it hard was a combination of poor language skills and having to confront the type of xenophobic attitudes posted here.

The report found that refugees provided a bigger demographic dividend for an ageing population because they are younger than other migrants and a high proportion arrive as children.

It found refugees are more likely to be helping dwindling rural communities and labour shortages with one in five moving to regional towns this year compared to just 11 percent in 2004.

The report says refugees had made 'a distinct contribution as entrepreneurs'.

Dear spindoc,

Oh dear. I'm sorry if somehow I seem to have upset you by what I posted. I'm a librarian by profession and our training includes
doing research and seeking out the facts from a variety of sources. What I presented was obtained from many sources - on the history of refugees and migrants in general who came to this country and the government policies that
were operational at the time. I thought that I made it quite clear that refugees need to be processed quickly and their suitability/or not, assessed according to all the checks and necessary procedures. I also stated that the current policies were problematic.

Perhaps you didn't read my post in its entirety - and therefore took it as a personal insult. It was not intended as such. And your stooping again to personal insults really does not do you much credit. This is a public forum of social and political debate and as such we're all entitled to our opinions. We can disagree - but we should respect the opinion of others. I can't understand the tendency on so many people's parts to think that their way is the right way and that people who disagree with them are bad.

A healthy, vital society is not one in which we all agree. Without our personal cimmitment to the attributes of fair play and integrity,
we're in grave danger. Malice and intolerance stalk our society, staking claim to our minds, and not one corner of our social order is unaffected. Personally I think it is more important that we renew dignified and respectful dialogue with those who do not agree with us than that we keep slavishly congratulating those who have the wisdom to see things our way. You obviously disagree with that. Fair enough. That's something I'll have to learn to live with.

@ Cheryl
The subject at hand is the SBS propaganda piece "Go back to where you came from", not "refugees".
The program is about White people, if they wanted to make a doco about "refugees" they could have had someone from Sudan or Iraq re -trace their journey and give viewers a sense of "what it's really like".
There are in fact numerous films which do exactly that and do it well, I've seen one about illegal immigrants hopping trains from Guatemala to the U.S and another about people moving from Zimbabwe to South Africa, riveting viewing.
This may also be of interest:
Tamil "Refugees" in Canada taking holidays and business trips back to Sri Lanka.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics/2010/08/21/15098761.html?cid=ETF

Ah Cheryl and Lexi, you place so much importance upon the opinion of others. One has to wonder if you will ever develop one of your own.

Your capacity for drilling down into content is truly astonishing. More so from the point that in spite of all this effort, research and investigation, you studiously manage to avoid context, relevance or an opinion of your own. When are you going to realize that your own opinion is supportable because YOU formulated it. The opinion of others will never be supportable because it was not your original thought. As a result you resort to Uni-babble.

Some will just never get it.

Dear spindoc,

You're at it again. Re-read our posts. We do have opinions and we do express them. We also quote from various sources which is part and parcel of debating. Part of knowing your topic. It's always best to be informed whether the topic is politics, sport, television or stamp
collecting. You seem to enjoy arguing on an emotional level not a mature intelligent one. I'll leave you to it.

Dear Cheryl,

Jay overlooked a few facts about the TV program, Go Back To Where You Came From." Small clarification. The TV style documetnary takes six
Australians, with very set views on the asylum seeker debate, on a trip to where many refugees begin their journey. Apparently it's been a "roaring success." Chloe Walker, ABC Sydney states that, "...the hashtag #gobackSBS was one of the International top trending topics on Twitter last night, the show got a mention in the New York Times and was warched by an average of 524,000 in the five major metropolitan areas."

Worth a look I'd say.