It would be interesting to know just how many of those here who are so dismissive of the SBS program have actually sat down and watched the first two episodes in their entirety.

It is compelling and confronting television and if given a chance should at the very least shift some attitudes on some previously held misconceptions.

This program is not 'propaganda'. It's an open and honest attempt to provide the average Australian, who's never experienced the horrors and the life choices faced by refugees, with a vicarious living-through of a typical refugee experience, which through sheer good fortune in the lottery of birth they'll never have to confront for themselves.

The leaking and the fire on the boat were obviously contrived, but they're both common occurrences for asylum-seekers travelling in unseaworthy boats so such a contrivance is justified. There's very little else that has been set up especially for the show. The squalor of the camps and the brutality of the police raids were not in any way exaggerated. In fact if anything the police were being constrained with the cameras trained on their every action.

For those capable of feeling empathy for another's plight, this program will provide food for thought. For those whose fear and prejudice has blinded them to the notion of our common humanity, I guess no amount of walking-in-another's-shoes will ever move them.

SPQR

<< Like *Immigration Nation* it is full of half truths and full on distortions ... >>

Name one.

SteveRogers

<< I`m no fan of Malcolm Fraser, but he`s right on one thing: "Genocide involves the attempt to achieve the disappearance of a group by whatever means. It does not have to be violent, it could be a combination of policies that would lead to a certain group dying out." >>

I doubt Malcolm Fraser would appreciate being quoted to support your racist fear mongering. He more than any other Australian Prime Minister is responsible for giving hope to refugees, the vast majority of whom have gone on to call Australia home and to contribute to its wealth and cultural richness.

Bronwyn:"I doubt Malcolm Fraser would appreciate being quoted to support your racist fear mongering"

1.Facts are facts no matter who makes use of them,yes?

2.In your horribly biased anti-white OPINION I am "racist fear mongering" you are only saying that because I`m white and trying to defend my racial group from genocidal polices,anti-racism is just a codeword for anti-white.

I stand partially corrected, Shalmeneser. I have here in my hand the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics publication “Trends and Issues”, number 57, May 2001.

I quote.

“It is evident that the rise in handgun shootings in the Liverpool-Fairfield and the Canturbury-Bankstown Subdivisions has been more pronounced than the increase across the rest of the State between 1995 and 2000. It is also self evident that a large proportion of handgun shootings originate from these two sub-divisions. In fact, shootings in these areas account for more than 55% of all handgun shootings which occurred across NSW during the year 2000.”

The primary inhabitants of these areas Shalmeneser, are people of Vietnamese and Middle eastern ethnicities (the whites fled long ago). The Bureau also notes that these divisions “have significant drug trafficking problems.”

People of Vietnamese, Lebanese, aboriginal and Pacific Islander ethnicities are very disproportionately over represented in violent criminal behaviour and drug trafficking. The ABS publication “Prisoners in Australia” notes that foreign born people of these particular ethnicities are incarcerated at a rate 2-3 times higher than for "Australian born" people, and several times higher than for people from law abiding ethnicities.

When one remembers that police have stated previously that the main problem with criminal behaviour is more from the second generation “born in Australia”, then the actual proportions of prisoners from these ethnicities must be significantly higher.

To put that into perspective, ethnic criminal behaviour is now so bad that the state of NSW has opened four new prisons and reopened two old ones, and this despite the increase of novel punishments like “community service” and “home detention.” In the same period, NSW opened only one new university.

Lego,
if we use your 1995 - 200 figures as a base and we look at the 10 year period from 2000 - 2010, we see a massive increase of 300% in Randwick (from 0 - 3).
Waverly, Hurstville, Wyong, Wollongong, Shellharbour,Orange and the Hills went up 100% (0-1)Leichard 200% (0-2).
Parramatta 100% (1 - 2). Rockdale increased by a massive 500% (0 - 5)
By your logic we should be sending all Anglos back to where they came from.
bankstown on the other hand only increased by 40% ( 3 - 5).
Fairfield increased by 29% (7-9).
The reality is we're talking about minute figures. when the numbers are this small you can make percentages say whatever you want to.
you have not refuted the substance of my original post.
Yours is a beat up.

The makers of this series are blind to some necessary facts about our allegedly rich continent. In a very few years the effects of peak oil, climate change and peak phosphorus will make the delusion that we can take the overflow from the countries where ignorance of carrying capacity has caused disaster as evident as cannon balls.We have already exceeded the carrying capacity of this country and in a hundred years we will be lucky to carry 5% of our present population Fooled by our reluctance to examine our morality we act as if sharing our last crust would guarantee a favoured place in the life after death. To some this is a fair swap but better I think to recognize the truth Mary Gilmore spoke...

I have grown past hate and bitterness,
I see the world as one;
But though I can no longer hate,
My son is still my son.

All men at God’s round table sit,
And all men must be fed;
But this loaf in my hand,
This loaf is my son’s bread.

Dear SteveRogers,

I don't quite understand what you mean when you refer to the "White Race." Are you referring to the colour of one's skin or to people who come from the same genetic stock? Because humanity has been mixing
since early historic times with conquests, invasions, migrations, and inter-marriages. There is a general term which defines the light-skinned people as Caucasian - which distinguishes them from the African, the Asian, Polynesian, Australoid, and other groups.

I agree with shared values in a country like Australia but your statements are a bit of a puzzle in that they seems obsolete and detached from reality. We're a great country because we're so diverse.
A stereotypical Australian is possible but not one who can be defined as aspirational for the majority of the population. Even the "Australian of the Year," awards and the chosen recipients don't always make everyone in the community happy.

As Charles Darwin told us: "It isn't the strongest of the species that survives nor the most intelligent, but the ones most adaptive to change." Most Australians are assimilating foreign ideas and becoming stronger in the process. We're no longer the cultural backwater that we once were.