There are currently some 250,000 people in Australia on 457 visas. We have recently been told that many 457 visa holders come in on false identities. These 'unidentified' people are at large in the community and as of 2012 have the opportunity to apply for permanent residency. Why not cut the number of 457 visas by the number of asylum seekers who arrived the previous year and give asylum seekers temporary protection visas requiring them to work in specific fields of employment, and in particular regions? This disgusting race to the bottom by Rudd and Abbott has too great human cost.

Marylin Shepherd has now left the room and gone once again to the S.A. Advertiser for her usual raving and rantings about asylum seekers, how bad we all are who disagree with her, so all will be quiet here until the next episode. She is as boring as the new baby reporting.

Dear CHERFUL,

This is the 21st century, but there are pockets of
intolerance, confusion, and negativity still out
there and we need to tackle them. We might achieve
this through public education programs, or just
education. Maybe we just need time, as it was with
some attitudes towards people who were visibly and
linguistically different in the past. Tribalism in
Australia, dissolves away as people get to know
each other much the same way as it did for wogs, balts,
et cetera.
In fact all Australians who gradually became insiders
in our large brown land.

Whatever the long-term solution is, it will always be
important to nip extreme intolerance in the bud.
Regardless of number, ethnic diversity is a fact of the
modern age of migration, and we must deal with it.

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

No, I did not include visa overstayers (illegals)
who come by plane, in my numbers.
Hopefully, they will be dealt with by the proper authorities.

Individual,

Thank you for your opinion.

Candida,

The 457 program is in place to fill skills shortages for engineers etc, to suggest replacing them with unemployable economic migrants who normally remain on the dole is ludicrous. 457 visa holders don't get welfare, medicare, or housing, pay taxes and are not a drain on the public purse. If they stop working for their employer, their visa is cancelled.

"We have recently been told that many 457 visa holders come in on false identities." (with regards Indian passport fraud in 2008-2010)

However, things have since changed.

"We're quite confident that those people who were issued with a visa ... 99.9 per cent are who they say they are and are doing what they said they would do when they were granted that visa."

As for being "at large" in the community, if they stop working for their employer, their visa is cancelled. They also don't get welfare, medicare, or housing.

Loudmouth,

"Why do you bother?"

I don't come onto this forum to answer every question put to me...especially those confected to construct a strawman argument.

I'm not beholden to answer your questions.

If you insist, as is your wont, on going into your "how many shall we take" routine, that's up to you.

I barely read your blather once I realise you're back in the "loop".

So, what I "bother" to say has nothing whatsoever to do with you.

Cheers

: )

Hi Poirot,

"So, what I "bother" to say has nothing whatsoever to do with you."

Nothing much has, since it's the topic that should be central, not me or you, with respect.

And if you want to have a chook in this race, you really have to be a able to set out your position - in this case, should we take everybody who comes within cooee of Australian territory - or should we set an annual limit, and if so, what ? And then what ?

My position is that we can increase the annual quota to 30,000, but strictly of poor people who have filled out all the right forms and waited in line: all others should, with the agreement of the host country, be flown back to the country they have just left, probably illegally.

The only exceptions might be people such as Tamils and Rohinga genuinely fleeing persecution in Sri Lanka and Burma respectively.

But the onus would still be on them to demonstrate/prove that they face persecution, perhaps not all that difficult given the vicious nature of the regimes in those countries, so there would not be much point to destroying their papers.

That's my position, for what it's worth. I'm prepared to defend it.

Do you have one at all, Poirot ? Any principles at all ? Or do just like seeing your smart-@rse words on a page ?

Cheers :)

Joe