JF Aus, as you indicate, the flu injection is not a guarantee that you will not catch the flu.

The only way we should have spent any money on foreign students in Oz would have been to put them on a plane home, with a canceled visa in their pocket.

With foreign students gone, our universities just might become useful to us again, & perhaps the never ever fail policy could give way to useful education for Australians again.

This article shows in what disrespect the academic sector holds the average Australian tax payer. We are just a milk cow to be exploited, with no thought of offering a return.

Foreign students particularly Chinese are not enrolling in Australian universities and colleges to get an education. It's a short cut to getting permanent residency.

They get local work experience while doing their course and then land a job upon graduation. And employers like it because they usually accept lower incomes as an initial step towards getting a permanent residency visa. Local workers don't like it because they cannot compete with these lower paid workers.

Tell them they can never apply for permanent residency when they finish their course and see how many students will come here from China. Not many you say?

Joe,

I didn't have a runny nose either time.
The first time I was in the Solomon Islands, lots of humidity, the start of the wet season.
It was the dry cough that I really noticed, so much it made the bottom of my rib cage sore.
An elderly neighbor there also had it.
I expect different symptoms for different people depending on natural immunity/resistance and location etc.

Hi JF,

So is it possible that, if those illnesses, going back to late winter 2019, were earlier mutations of Covid-19, then it could have originated anywhere, and showed up in many parts of the world, including Wuhan ? I wonder if the Americans secretly developed it, and tested it in the Solomons, where it got out of hand ? Yeah, that makes sense. Or maybe the Russians. Yeah, that would make sense too. Or the French. Bastards. Or the Japanese.

The final truth might leave some of our resident racist turds a bit out on a limb :)

I went to school in Darwin in the late fifties and had many very good Chinese friends, very generous and kind. One taught me how to jive. They, and their parents and grandparents, had of course been born in Australia but at the time, could not become Australian citizens. I think Hubert Opperman brought in an option when he was Minister for Immigration under Menzies, that they could become citizens fifteen years after applying. One of the first funerals that I went to was for an old Darwin-born Chinese man, Mr Tang born in 1894, who could never become a citizen. Lovely old bloke. Darwin was a wonderful education.

Joe

The very worthwhile Columbo plan, in its original incarnation, was an international scholarship plan to build goodwill, not university bank balances.

The fact that it became intended to earn income before alleged goodwill. Made it a cold and heartless, it's just business, money spinner!

And those students that came here did so with eyes wide open and alleged guaranteed financial support!

There was never ever anything remotely warm and fuzzy about it nor our various tourist industries, rolled out to replace our own independent manufacturing sector. INSANITY MADE MANIFEST!

And boy, could we use the latter manufacturing sector right now! As for the students?

There are numerous opportunities to earn a quid during annual labour intensive harvests!

Thumb a diesel down and get yourselves out there! They may even provide a free lunch? Along with fresh clean air and sanitising sunshine!

Get used to it, it's going to be a way of life for some decades to come, given our timid leadership and please ex-plane, saddlebag lead! Further complicated by a few purple-faced, C bomb dropping, juveniles, squabbling over the spoils of defeat?
Alan B.