Well, excuse me, Kellie, but raising the pension age to 70 and introducing 6-month waiting periods for unemployment benefits for people under 30 are not 'comparatively minor proposed cuts to welfare'.

Most Australians understand that these are cuts that go too far. They lay the dangerous groundwork to create within Australia the same conditions of widespread hopelessness, despair and destitution that many asylum seekers and refuges are actually fleeing from in their own countries. The world's most war-torn, unstable countries are the ones with the most unequal distribution of wealth. They are countries that treat the poor and vulnerable with utter contempt, while the rich get fat on corruption.

Instead of pouring disdain on the public outcry against the Cruelition government's proposed cuts to welfare, you should be proud that there are still so many compassionate Australians who actually do care and want to fight them.

I suppose your heart is in the right place, Kellie, but your arguments can be spectacularly naïve at times.

Hey Kellie, always had a bit of a problem with arithmetic have you love?

Not unusual with the legal fraternity, except when counting their loot. I don't suppose the loss of boat people as a source of revenue for human rights lawyers wouldn't have any effect on your mates not wanting to see the flow stopped.

If you ever find your calculator just try adding the costs of maintaining the boat people now in Oz after rather doubtful approval of them as refugees, & then compare that to the costs of keeping a few of them in off shore centres, if that is not too difficult for a human rights activists.

You would find the on going cost of these people, mostly still on welfare, [the reason for them coming here in the first place] is huge compared to the detention of a few of them putting the brakes on the boats.

Now try a bit of human rights thinking, & promote the stopping of this rip off of those pensioners, single parents, the disadvantaged you claim to want to help. They are human after all, don’t you know. That the best way to help them is to stop the boats will become obvious even to you.

Jayb:

…True on all scores, but your argument against illegals does not go far enough. I support the anti-immigration arguments of Ludwig. By their own admission yesterday, we now have a complete NSW economy reliant on a propped-up, and totally distorted, fake-value property market.

…The most dangerous prospect for Australia and Australians in the present and the future, are moving into view from the left field, in the form of foreign investment. It is at this point that Kellie Tranter misses the mark entirely.

… Illegal immigrants have always been a diversion to the real and meaningful issue of open slather immigration, cloaked as the “good Guy” multiculturalism! Multiculturalism and illegal immigrants are the ruse used by governments with vested interested in re-election, and in “cooking the books” by distorting market realities, by recklessly "incentivising" legal immigration for their own purposes!

post 1 –

A major problem with the entire issue is the outrageously unfounded assumption that IT IS a FACT that this “dog whistle politics” actually exists and that furthermore, there also exists a massive section of the nation which is somehow hypnotised by that ‘whistling’ and thereby under the control of the political masters.

Tell me, who are these people, where are they and HOW is it known to be the case? Are there some statistics and research papers on this issue that I am unaware of?

Basically I mean to say –

How can anyone claim to have either the authority or extreme insight [telepathic level] into the minds of those who may have issue with the nation’s over bloated spending on luxuries like our current refugee industry [which is not base and reasonable but extravagant to the point where many refugees are given free a standard of living higher than that of many of our nation’s own citizens]?

To merely assume without evidence that such a person is immoral, selfish and bad [racist too] rather than maybe of genuine and fair concerns for how many citizens who have paid tax all their lives and whose ancestors have paid tax for the 2 centuries the nation has existed, now seem to be getting thrown away, crushed and ignored whilst the handful of immigrants who claim to be refugees receive 100% attention both politically and economically?

Remember this also before making ridiculous judgements about the types of people I know you all imagine to be those under the spell of the "dog whistle" [working class and poor whites] -

. . . . compare the massive changes to all aspects in their existence [e.g. jobs gone, land ad house prices beyond their reach today] to the ZERO changes and affects in the world of the middle classes. Who has the most reason to be upset especially now that they are being told that Medicare, the dole etc. are all under threat from those massive changes over the decades.

To be sure, current outcomes seem to be cruel, although not as cruel as sending them to Siberia, or worse, the frozen wastes of Tasmania on temporary protection visas?
And given seemingly cruel outcomes, those still risking all, just have to be the genuine article?
All frivolous levity aside, I wouldn't mind if we doubled or trebled our legitimate intake, particularly if we could send all of them to Tiny Tassie?
And there surely is an element of truth in the homily, you sometimes have to be cruel to be kind.
I mean, we could solve all of the difficulties in the Ukraine and the Middle East, if we just opened the doors and let all the peace loving non combatants from just those two areas in.
And we could house the the truly desperate in tent cities/unoccupied mining tenements, at places like Woomera, or anywhere they like in Tassie?
The previously logged areas inside the Tarkine perhaps, where there seems to be quite a lot of free rudimentary building material, just lying about?
And that mass migration/relocation might just be a possible outcome of remaining a soft touch for the dispossessed of the world?
I mean, just add water to the midlands, and tiny Tassie is going to be screaming for "legitimate" guest labor?
And given they seem to be welcoming properly documented Genuine asylum seekers, maybe that's where they and all their benefits, could all go?
Rhrosty.

Why are there refugees living in public housing at all?
Have any of the Melbourne based OLO posters been down and had a look at the Derby st flats in Kensington? You should, pop into the onsite cafe for a latte and a piece of cake and watch the passing parade.
If I wanted a two bedroom flat of that quality in that area I'd be paying upwards of $400 a week on the private market and you should see some of the share houses young, working people live in in the inner city, let's just say I make a decent living doing maintenance on them.