Bogan!...Bah, I am a "w#nker" and proud of it. "Australians all let us rejoice"!

Yes Graham your sentiments ring true to me. But I think the emphasis should be on the fact that most of us Australians are 'cashed up' and also soft and insecure, we dont want to give up any of the things we have that give us a false sense of security.

The bogan thing is relentlessly pushed but conservative New Ltd press and also some commercial radio and certainly by the Liberal pollies your mentioned.

But it's not all doom and gloom. We must recognize that this is mainly a strategy by the big corporate powers who control the press and conservative politics.

Australia is not really on balance bogan, despite what they tell us.
After all , with the help of the Greens and Independents, who got a big slice of the vote, we do have progressive legislation happening, such as the carbon tax and resources profits tax.

Stop boasting Diver, you're not half the w#nker that this twit is, wanting "balanced reporting, that only reports on the con mans argument.

So, not just for bogans, but for all intelligent Ozzies, what we need is a punching bag, with our Julia depicted on one side, & some fellow traveling twit on the other.

David Young would do I suppose, but he is a bit of a waste of time, & pretty small cheese.

It probably should be KRuddy. Then the 2 worst PMs any country has ever suffered consecutively, would be forever together.

God, putting those two together for ever, I didn't know I could be that nasty.

Holy-Moses "Roses",

...- what world are you in? - Unless you are a ventriloquist, I'd say you dwell under a bridge to nowhere!

Let me get this Article right.

If I don't believe in the Climate Change Propaganda, then I am a Bogan ?

Not, that this is another crap Article , trying to sell the Emperor "invisible " clothes ?

"Boganism is about the choice to invent simplistic answers to every problem with no regard to facts, available information or evidence."

"the lower class of refugee who can only arrange a boat trip and will end up in indefinite detention, whilst the upper class refuges, which arrive by plane"

I could not find hard numbers on it but my understanding is that the cost of arriving in Australia from Indonesia via boat (eg the services of people smugglers) is a lot higher than an airfare from most parts of the world. I've seen numbers of between $10k to $30k mentioned for that trip whilst I could see advertised airfares of around $500 to $600 to get from Jakarta to Sydney on the web.

Does anybody have reason to believe that those arriving by boat on our northern shores from Indonesia are travelling to Australia for less than $600 each?

Is the author's suggestion of a class structure for refugee's based on the transport they can arrange an example of inventing a simplistic answers to a problem with no regard to facts, available information or evidence?

Overall my impression of the article was an example of the attributes ascribed to bogans by the author. Simplistic spin on topics which can be complex, with a left wing slant rather than a right wing slant.

R0bert

"Overall my impression of the article was an example of the attributes ascribed to bogans by the author. Simplistic spin on topics which can be complex, with a left wing slant rather than a right wing slant"

R0bert, I agree entirely. The use of abusive labels in place of argument and invented statistics (the press gives "all its coverage to the five per cent of the scientists who are doubtful about climate change") is exactly the kind of argument from emotion and prejudice that the author is trying to attack.

And Tony Jones a bogan? Please.

Tony Jones was of course a typo. Read Alan Jones.
Thank you for spotting the error.

David,
In order for comedy and satire to work it has to be funny, ironic or at the very least, witty.
You've invented a class of person, presumably to avoid being labeled a bigot and in the process mangled the accepted definition of the term Bogan.
Bogan has one specific meaning only, it's used to describe the White underclass, the most vulnerable group who make up the bulk of Australia's poor, homeless, addicted and mentally ill.
The term "cashed up Bogan" is offensive, it undercuts Australia's tradition of class mobility and egalitarianism. People only become cashed up because they're hard working or enterprising individuals, presumably you don't think that anyone should break free of poverty and better themselves?
Then there's the equally nasty intimation that "Bogans", the poorest and most vulnerable in society should not have a public voice or political representation, this attitude is so entrenched in the Left intellectual and academic caste in this country that it hardly needs description.
Then there's the old Racism strawman, perhaps "Bogans", the poorest and most vulnerable Australians are less keen on refugees because they actually have to live with them, they have to watch them moved into public housing ahead of Australian born and homeless people while scorn of "Boganism" and "Red Neck" living standards rains down from the political and academic castes.

Whatareya David?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4vSEXvLsx0
.

Thanks Jay of Melbourne:

...Sorta makes me blush with pride, that clip! Bita good old-fashioned “biff-n-slipper”: And AFL in the lounge room too, just like at me poor old Mums place when we was grow’n up. Makes me feel so good about life now…All them memories come flooden back, ya no, just makes ya proud to be a “w#nker”…sorta! ..anyway, cop-ya-later Jay... bi...Dan.

"A w@nker fights inequality
And for people's rights;
A w@nker fights class prejudice
A yobbo just fights"

Using these criteria, it is easy to see that David is a w@nker and Jay is a yobbo.

Humphrey Flaubert eh!,
No I'm more of a cashed up Bogan, I actually defy class prejudice, instead of pretending to fight it,a w@nker's compassion is doled out while laughing behind one's hand.
The term "Bogan" implies moral failings too, it's the equivalent of and interchangeable with the American term "White Trash". The Bogan is the poorest, most vulnerable member of society, in the progressive stack they're below the Indigenous, the "Refugees", below the imported servant castes from India and China.

I think I've got it!

We should give every bogan an academic w#nker to play with, for a year.

Provided we had the w#nkers mouth permanently taped shut, they should not be able to hurt our vulnerable bogan, & it would surely be character building for the w#nker. Lets face it, most of our w#nkers require a lot of building, before they can grow a character.

What would Santa give a Bogan child for Christmas?

I tried to think of something clever to say - but
my heart wasn't in it - especially at this time of
the year. I'm sure that Santa would give the child
what He thought would put a Light in the child's
eyes, Joy in his/her heart, and plenty of reasons to
smile. Santa knows what the child wants and needs.

Well, this article certainly seems to substantiate that old cliche, "it takes one to know one". Welcome to the ranks of those you seem to despise, Mr David Young. Never let the facts get in the way of nifty yarn, eh? Oh, and thanks for the compliment - not.

Funny how boat people never seem to have any identification papers - which of course would normally be needed to get an entry visa if you intended coming by more normal means. Probably some reasonably 'bogan' explanation for that, eh?

Funny also how Indonesia seems to find out fairly quickly if an asylum-seeker boat founders in their territorial waters, but just can't seem to stop them leaving its wholesome shores in the first place. Curious coincidence, what? Funny also how they refuse any help in looking for 'survivors'.

On a more serious note, the biggest problem with the handling of asylum-seekers, whether arriving by 'boat' or with entry visa in hand, is that there seems to be nowhere to send non-refugees back to, because no-one wants them - not their country of origin or their place of departure for our 'greener shores'. Hence, they fall into a 'crack' in our oh so wonderful immigration and border protection system. We just hate being pushed into a corner, with no 'reasonable' way out - Catch 22? At least, it may be easier to 'repatriate' those non-refugees arriving by air, maybe?

We hate seeing asylum-seekers in detention, and we also hate having people coming through 'the back door' - but it would be wrong for us to just throw open the gates and put out the welcome mat; we just couldn't handle the resultant inflow, nor should we have to. We are not Santa Claus! An international solution is required as a matter of urgency, but given the current turmoil in the world economy, there's little chance of that any time soon.

Please let us know if you have a 'fair dinkum' solution to this (asylum-seeker) problem, Mr David Young. (I think we can take care of the 'bogan' problem by ourselves.)