Dear Rebecca, Crap!!

Rebecca: No right minded individual, etc.

A pull at the heart strings that is designed to make you feel bad like a social outcast if you don't agree. Here's a box of tissues Rebecca, better have a carton of tissues, the bleeding heart brigade will be needing 'em.

Rebecca: People who flee their host countries for Australia, etc.

As above 'n Double. They cross over multiple suitable Muslim Countries to get here. According to the UN Charter they cease to be Asylum Seekers once they have crossed multiple Boarders. They are shopping for the best economic deal & Australia is the sucker Country.

Rebecca: The purpose of Australian aid is to help people overcome poverty, says the Australian Government's aid policy. etc.

That is the stated purpose; unfortunately it doesn't & has never worked like that. I know that from personal experience. My bet is that your experience comes from bleeding heart groups in Uni. See.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chXsLtHqfdM

Rebecca: Australia's 2011-2012 budget recognises that reducing poverty is in our 'national security and national economic interest'. It recognises that 'poverty breeds instability and extremism in our region and globally', and 'creates conditions that lead to more refugees, etc. Most of the Aid money ends up in the hands of the CEO's of the Charities & in the hands of the local Militias Leader anyway.

Saving these people only leads them to bread more & in 10 years the problem doubles. The ones that were saved by Bob Gedoff's effort are now the ones that are the Terrorists & Pirates in the region. We created that problem. Question. How much Food Aid is given to the Horn of Africa by the Oil Rich Nations around the Middle East? Zilch.
It is expected by the Islamic Countries that the West provide this Aid as the Yitzhak Tax that non-Muslims are expected to pay to Muslims to allow to be non-Muslim. It is considered by Muslims to be the West’s Duty to provide this Aid.

cont.

Rebecca: The proposed diversion of $375m from the foreign aid budget makes little sense economically,

Where it's going makes little sense. To the illegal Asylum Seekers? Excuse me!

Australia has many Homeless people, Our Health System is in disarray, The School System is a mess, The Disability problem is appalling, and The Aboriginal problem need much more help. Australia's Transport infrastructure is 3rd. World. That $375 million wouldn't even touch the sides of fixing Australia's own problems if that money was spread around those areas. More & more of Australia's Budget (our Taxes) is being siphoned off to support, what amounts to be criminals.

A moratorium needs to be held on the $4.7 Billion we send out of this Country by the Government. Let the Private Charity Groups provide any Aid they want to these people, but not the Government. Charity begins at home. It starts with us. We cannot help anyone else if we are in no position to help ourselves.

Foreign aid money being used on boat people, and why should it not be.
That is foreign aid, it is spent on assistance for foreign people.
There should be far more foreign aid spent here, why don't we get foreign aid money from world bank. We are supporting foreign aid, but have to pay for it ourselves.

I could not agree with JAYB more, ALL of the ILL's in our country AUSTRALIA need to be fixed long before ONE CENT is sent out of this country.

Just for the record Rebecca, pray tell us if it is OK for Save the Children, & other such organisations, to divert aid money, government or private donation, to pay policy & advocacy advisors, & other hangers on.

After seeing the salaries of some people involved if foreign aid work, I'm more interested is seeing another $375 million redirected to our own pensioner support.

Perhaps you could join us & advocate more of our money staying right here at home.

Jayb

That's a great video.

I also highly recommend the book Mr. Sirolli mentions.

See:

http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Aid-Working-Better-Africa/dp/0374532125

(I had read it previously)

I have personally seen the damage aid does to Africa.

I think the best aid is no aid. In fact I think aid should be considered a crime against humanity.

Stevenlmeyer what about all the aid Israel receives, would you agree that should also be stopped.

Kipp asks:

>>what about all the aid Israel receives, would you agree that should also be stopped.>>

Yes.

Australian Aid at all destinations should be reviewed, perhaps through a Royal Commission.
For example I saw former PM Howard announce A.$800 million aid for Solomon Islands but a later SMH report stated $600 million never left Australia. Google "phantom aid" and "boomerang aid"

Solomon Islands people virtually have no money. An experienced SI economist has said the SI economy now needs to be monetized. Stimulated is a more modern description.
Eight hundred Aus million would have likely provided the stimulus but instead Aus sent the RAMSI force to collect guns and force the peace.
Now RAMSI is about to leave but the poverty continues and is acute, chronic - long term, especially amongst out of town/rural people.

Australia should look carefully and applying real aid through management with knowledge and skill instead of through an AusAid councillor with no decision authority.

Only this year have SI people been allowed temporary farm work in Australia yet the SW Pacific Islands are a tourism drawcard especially for cruise ships to the region that absolutely includes Australia.
Peace in the region is vital, so too is humanitarian aid to offset the now chronic poverty that is even linked to a 69 percent increase in anaemia linked maternal mortality. Protein deficiency malnutrition is involved due to island fish depletion /devastation.
There is a food sustainability crisis in the Pacific but the impact on humans is virtually ignored.

Why not delay the Australian $40 billion NBN and borrow $400 million from there instead of taking it from AusAid?

Peace and prosperity and health in our region is essential, instead of worsening poverty and disease.
Go check out SI. Travel around. Virtually no Australian aid development can be seen.

SI provides example of Aus Aid outcome.
Sure RAMSI has forced the peace but what now with a nation of really good people plunged into real poverty, traditional island seafood no longer available?

Why should phony refugees be given assistance and not our malnourished and sickened neighbours?

JF Aus what utter garbage.

Most of the people of PNG & the Solomons have very little need of money. Most of them lead a simple subsistence life style, with an excellent diet which can be altered to too much bought in rice, when money is plentiful, or trade store & plantation owners push it.

Lack of protein becomes a problem when the population out breeds the capacity for their area to supply protein rich food. The system of foreign aid would simply support these breeders, to even further exceed their food supply.

The US Peace Core developed a format with volunteers helping a few enterprising locals become "big men", by developing cropping. Soon this lead to whole communities following the leader.

This works, but is an anathema to the "Foreign Aid" professional, who do mostly harm with their handouts .

In many instances I have seen 100 ton a month plantations given back to the villagers. In no time these thriving plantations were down to 3 or 4 ton a month, & falling apart, because the villagers did not want money enough to work the things.

When the population have great economic opportunity, if they want development, I can see absolutely no reason for Oz taxes to fund development which the islanders can't be bothered doing for themselves.

Too much development too quickly, leading to good transport, before the population is ready for it, will just lead to inter island warfare, which is why we are there now.

It has happened when ever development has lead to high inter island migration.

When they are ready, they will develop at their own pace, & should be left alone to do so.

HasBeen,
OLO as a site for debate should get a medal for allowing the article here and this discussion to take place.

Has been, you are very wrong with your opinion (as above) because I am absolutely correct with what I have written. I am sometimes now based in SI and have background there since 1973.

Times have changed, fundamentally changed because subsistence living in Solomon Islands is no longer possible. You see the fish are no longer abundant and available to be caught by hand or from a hand paddled canoe. Yes canoes with an outboard can travel and eventually find and catch a few fish but who pays for the petrol?

Previously fish used to be abundant and fresh and free but not anymore. Baitfish were always available but not anymore. Fish used to be like money, including shell money but not anymore.
Shell for shell money is now even imported by Malaita Island shell money makers, from the Western Province and it has to be paid for.

Five weeks ago I was asked for $80 SI to buy batteries to find and catch reef fish sleeping at night. The reefs are being devastated due to need for food to feed families.

Australians should learn about complete protein, the protein with amino acid and whatever else not found in rice or potato.

SI people now need properly paid employment to buy alternative food that costs the same or more than in Australia. They need money for developed world petrol to get to shops or to transport stores back to a local shop.
But Australia has had them locked out of worker programs while people from rich nations can come and work virtually as they want. NZ people do not even need a Visa.

And I know Australian farmers who desperately need viable labour in their remote rural and outback regions where Aus people do not wish to work.
e.g. True Aus Aid could be involve more than just paying out money.
Continued………….

Part 2. Att Hasbeen,

SI economics, oh yes. Chinese shops have even closed and gone recently in Munda due to lack of enough trade to pay rent.
Thriving plantations you say Hasbeen, yes they were given back to locals because the price fell out of copra, so no wonder locals could not afford to keep them cleared.
And the coup that developed from ECONOMIC tension that media calls ethnic tension,led to plantation cattle being eaten, so no more animals to help clear plantation undergrowth.
Coconut trees are now very old, less productive, less viable. Example, a man collected and husked and dried 41 bags of copra in one month and took it to Noro by canoe and was paid $700 SBD, and out of that he paid $350 SBD for petrol to get to Noro. At the time $1 Aus was about $4 SBD. Really, do the numbers.

Aus Aid and Australian government and media has no right to gag or suppress information of substance about the real devastated state of marine environment and impact and consequences.

In my opinion according to experience and empirical evidence, new information about the collapsed and collapsing state of Pacific Ocean food supply and sustainability is not even officially reaching the Peace Corp, or Australians.

Aus people are not seeing the need for real aid for our neighbours because people are not being informed about cause of the need. e.g. UN World Environment Day 2004 – Seas and Oceans wanted dead or alive, did not even get a run in Australia media or government news during 2004. Check library records.

Most people affected? Many people affected?
How many sick and dead humans are required before due action is taken? And that is saying nothing about starvation of marine animals on Australia's western Pacific Ocean shores.

There is need for a BIG re think, especially by Aus government and AUS AID.

So basically, JF Aus, you want to put the whole of the Solomon Islands onto the Australian Dole system so that Solomon Island people can sit under a palm tree & soak up the beautiful tropical atmosphere. Is that it?

No, that's not it, Jaybe.
SI people are good workers. And they are our neighbors.

Like everybody else, people work well when fairly paid.
And these people don't ask for much.
They despise their own need for aid.

No Jayb, JF Aus wants a bunch of Oz public servants & do gooders, paid to go & support the islanders, not to sit under a palm tree, but to breed even more, so they overpopulate their environment to an even greater extent.

This is ever the "aid" system. The population expands beyond the regions capacity to support it. This assures more & more aid, dispensed by more & more aid workers is required. It is a growth industry for NGOs who can justify ever increasing salaries for their staff, as their numbers explode.

JF in the 70 I escorted their puny little canoes on trips to traditional fishing grounds, villagers frequented when they still built the large sailing canoes.

I ran wife swapping trips for them, when there were none left they could marry on their island, for the same reason. I should have been pushing them into building the old style big canoes, not helping them avoid the effort.

I have seen the number of canoes & houses on some islands & knew the region could never support that level of population.

On Google earth I can see plantations going back to scrub. If copra price falls of course you sit on your butt & cry. You would never plant palm oil palms, to replace the coconuts, as the thriving Kimbe area of new Britain has, now would you. Nah, lets get the Ozzies to give more aid, that's the shot.

It's a good thing there wasn't much aid when Oz was settled, or we would all be sitting, crying, in Sydney, waiting for more aid

Jf Aus,
It's been a long time since I have read such idiotic rambling. Go to the Solomons & help them help themselves as should be done in many communities here. Stop wasting time & space & move over there. You'll soon learn how your ideology will be dealt with. Just don't come crawling back here.

Quote "in Afghanistan, $3.5 million would be enough to recruit and train enough health workers to provide community-based healthcare to the entire population."

Are you for real after the corrupt Government officials and then tribal leaders took there cut you may be left with $3.50.

REALITY CHECK NEEDED

Quote "First, Australia is a wealthy country with an insignificant refugee population"
WHEN approx 85% are all on welfare and we have a projected figure of 30,000 arriving next year THAT IS A BIG PROBLEM.

Not 1 homeless refugee THOUSANDS of homeless Australians.

Not 1 homeless refugee THOUSANDS of homeless Australians.
Philip S,
Hang on a sec. I thought Australia was such a wonderful country how come there are so many people in difficult economic & social situations ?
Perhaps I should buy my self some rose-coloured glasses like the Labor supporters are wearing eh ?
Or is it the I'm alright Jack, stuff you mentality creeping in again ?

Is the Australian homeless situation 100% genuine. What percentage are homeless by choice. Accommodation costs plenty, some people see better ways of spending that money. On a trip around AU you see heaps of homeless by choice people, they park in the bush ,at roadside stops anywhere you don't pay accommodation.
Aid money spent on food has to be the worst kind of aid, Those that are starving are in a no win situation and only delaying the inevitable end.
The foreign aid budget is rightly spent within AU on foreign supposed refugees. We should have no problem with that. That is foreign aid.

579,

Gak!....thread after thread on this forum, nothing but the same insularity and lack of compassion - yours is just the latest.

What is it with fortunate first worlders that they gain in material fortune while losing their empathy?

Poirot: What is it with fortunate first worlders that they gain in material fortune while losing their empathy?

Aaah Poirot. I wondered when you would pop in all wet from crying into your navel. Fortunately, dear Poirot, most of have to live in the real world & face real world facts. We can't afford the luxury of living in fairyland with all the other sugarplum fairies, fairy dust, flowers, pretty rainbows & cockleshells all in a row. I know self induced LSD type trips must be nice. I’m sure they are nice for you. Unfortunately those of us who can’t afford the luxury of living in that space can & must only act on cold hard facts.

If those cold hard facts offend you then stiff doo doo. Here’s a tissue...

Have you ever given any thought to the fact that your attitude just may offend other people as much as theirs offends yours. Just a PC thought.

Go for it, Jayb.

There's nothing like a Boxing Day dose of scintillating mediocrity to warm the cockle(shell)s of my heart.

Most impressive.....

579 - Quote "Is the Australian homeless situation 100% genuine. What percentage are homeless by choice. Accommodation costs plenty,"

Use your brain the Government have released thousands of boat people where do you think the houses are or came from, they are not building them so they will pay any price because they have to thus landlords know this and can raise rents putting it out of reach of many people.

This statement of yours is totally idiotic "Accommodation costs plenty"
So because it cost plenty people are happy to sleep in a car or under a bridge.

By any chance are you related to Belly?

When politicians have to cut back expenditure, the first item to be cut should be politician's salaries and expenses. The second item to be cut should be foreign aid, on the principle that charity begins at home. If the government were to eliminate politician's salaries, foreign aid and the NBN, they would easily be able to run a budget surplus.

Poirot: There's nothing like a Boxing Day dose of scintillating mediocrity to warm the cockle(shell)s of my heart.

Well handled Poirot. It's good to see you are developing a sense of humour at last. Keep it up luv. Beat going into a depressive state any day. Well Done.

I sincerely hope you had a merry Christmas & all the best for the New Year. That also goes for everyone on the Forum & Your Opinion. We have our differences but I love you all anyway. Keeps me young. 67 on Saturday.

Wouldn't bother reading the article cause it just smells of bleeding hearts to me.

Now I have no problems with foriegn aid, except for those supposed worthwhile causes that promote the very problem these third world countries suffer from. Over breeding.

Furthermore, my idea on aid is that once our people are fully provided for, any additional funds can be directed to worthwhile causes. Like the illegals debacle.

Not taken from our people to feed the illegals debacle.

There is one very important rule that needs to be followed, that is...

CHARITY starts at home. GET IT!

Hasbeen,
What could be a possible motive for me to talk rubbish on this site?
Island people to breed even more you say. What level of population and where are you referring to Hasbeen?
Take a look at Australia’s population Hasbeen, several thousand arrived on boats about 240 years ago and they now number over 20 million.
When Solomons was discovered the population was estimated at 80,000, then reduced to about 28,000 due to European disease, but is now about 600,000.

Get real Hasbeen. Due to their increased population, island people did not and could not possibly eat all the fish and devastate stocks to the critical level they are at now.

It is the developed world industrial revolution that created refrigeration and factory ships that has taken the stocks.
In my opinion according to empirical evidence it is western world and developing world human sewage and nutrient pollution that has devastated seagrass nurseries and food web supply, that is preventing wild fish stocks from recovering.
Historically low level is involved:
http://www.solomontimes.com/news.aspx?nwid=7439

The coconut plantation going back to scrub as you say, is also due to old trees and worsening acute poverty, another reason why aid is required.

From my point of view and evidence of substance I possess it is clear that if the UN wants peace and nations to unite, then the UN should look urgently at delivering new resources to various nations, in order for those nations to manage the whole of the water ecosystem including the oceans.
World protein food sustainability is at stake. The oceans are not being managed at all, neither are rivers or estuaries.
The marine world requires eco-economic stimulus to be viably productive and sustainable, instead of being an increasing burden.
Real aid does not have to be about handouts.
It can be done but not by milking present aid to fund ‘refugee’ opportunists.

INDIVIDUAL,
I challenge you to point out the idiotic rambling and justify your statement.
Are you so much an “individual”, that you are possibly racist?
Do you somehow have a problem with time and space?

JF Aus: challenge you to point out the idiotic rambling and justify your statement. Are you so much an “individual”, that you are possibly racist? Do you somehow have a problem with time and space?

OOOOh! ooooh! ooooh! Let me, let me Indie. Please please.

Just about everything you have written, start to finish, so far has bee idiotic rambling. That takes care of point 1. Point 2. If you don't like someones answer pull out the "Racist Card." Pulling the Politically Correctness Card only works on a few demented souls here. We are all aware of that trap. Point 3. Eh! As my friend Pauline would say, "Please explain." More idiotic ramblings I'm afraid.

Sorry Indie. I couldn't help myself.

Jayb,
Sounds like you are unable to prove any idotic rambling, as referred to in presently unsubstantiated opinion on this thread.
You generalize when you say "just about everything".
Be specific with one example of evidence in point.
You are unable to do that.

Are you so much an “individual”, that you are possibly racist?
JF Aus,
No, however I live with & work for racists & I'm allergic to people commenting when they haven't an ounce of pragmatism & constantly denounce those of us who keep the wheels turning by actually making things work not merely waffling on about idealism & letting the racists hoodwink us.

individual,
Fair enough. It must be a nightmare for those who actually keep the wheels turning, when there is so much jealousy and ego and pseudo experts etc going on and on with the waffle and/or spin.
I have just seen it full on at another site, the waste of time useless antagonism even supported by the site owner.
I stick with been there seen this and that and together with researched reality I will never get egg on my face.
Have a top New Year.