This Anansi character calls us “pig ignorant”. Somebody claiming not to be Australian and seeming very proud of the fact is the pig ignorant one, badmouthing our country as he/she is. His/her claim about contributions of refugees is also dumb. Refugees are a burden on the economy and environment. We don’t need them.

He/she is, perhaps, confusing refugees with decent migrants who have contributed.

Anansi, it’s well past time you started looking around with another Third World country.

Romany,

You have opened your big mouth again. Even though you didn’t have the guts to answer my question after telling us everybody who disagreed with you is “obtuse”. You are all mouth and no substance, and calling people obtuse is abuse.

As for your knowledge, we have only your word for it. You recently proved that you know nothing about Chinese food production, even though you claim to live there; so anything you claim to know must be taken with a grain of salt.

I did NOT SAY THIS: “…he says “Bronwyn and Romany take the 'legal' tac.” I remember seeing it, but it was not posted by me. How slack are you?

There are a few people like you on OLO, claiming all sorts of knowledge, experience and adventures. For all we know your claims could be, and probably are, total bulldust.

CJ Morgan,

I haven’t responded to your arrogant drivel for some time because I think that you are a sad poor idiot and knuckle-dragger. Like the nitwits above, you understand only the same talk you hand out to others who have the temerity to express an opinion here. So here you are. You are a sad, poor idiot, apparently embittered by personal failures and shortcomings. If you are trying to prove something, give up. You will never succeed.

My final words to all are: illegals should be turned straight around; all immigration, including any refugees, to Australia should cease. I will no longer respond to abusive cranks and end up like them.

Anansi “I have some real experience living and working in third world countries. Not imagined ones like yours.”

I have lived, in first world countries, UK, Australia, USA (where they have an entry “hurdle”) and visited a number of third world countries on business and vacations, nothing I write has anything to do with “imagined countries”.

“If Australia was drained of its skilled people”

That is called a “fatuous hypothetical” and not worthy responding to

“I'm rather surprised by Col's hatred of boat people being such a supporter of personal endevour and innovation,”

Because I believe in and respect the rule of law and the right of Australians to decide who will come here.

The alternative is Anarchy and (ultimately) the destruction of the fabric which makes life here worthwhile (and incidentally, the most likely reason why Australia would ever be drained of its skilled people).

“Other than that, Col dear, the children of refugees are on average achieving better economically and academically than those born here from 'true blue aussie parents' or from skilled migrant parents.”

I expect you to prove that statement before I will accept it as accurate and demand you distinguish between those “refugees” who came "LEGALLY", with visas and those who came “ILLEGALLY” in boats or any other means, intent on circumventing the Australian Migration regulations.

“Have the lot of you forgotten Australia's history, or are you just pig ignorant of it? Refugees have contributed greatly to this nation .:”

No you and the likes of CJMoron regularly remind me of “pig ignorance”.

I support acceptance of refugees into this country, following consideration of their applications and their “worthiness”.

Australians have a legal right to decide if someone is unsuited for settlement in Australia.

Example, I had to have a chest X-ray to verify I did not suffer from tuberculosis, a socially contagious disease. I had to also undergo a police check to my character.

Those who arrive illegally have supplied no certification to the status of their personal health nor the quality of their character (Somalian pirates /criminal past etc).

Yabby, to compare any European country's demographics and immigration with Australia is like comparing apples with oranges to use a cliche.

European countries are crowded and are not made up of a migrant population as is Australia.

Switzerland HALF the size of Tasmania with mountains where habitation is not possible has a population of over 7.5 million inhabitants. Nevertheless 35,700 acquired citizenship in 2004.

The Netherlands: HALF the size of Tasmania and the most densely populated, pop: 16.6 million has about 560 000 asylum seekers. Makes Australia's incessant whining about being overrun rather pitiful don't you think?

Austria: HALF the size of Tasmania with a pop. of 8.2 million of which 3% are Turks.

I can go on.

Many of you are keen to classify somebody as being 'left-wing' of 'bleeding-heart' when another viewpoint or question is raised. What never ceases to amaze me is how readily those who call themselves 'conservative' accept verbatim what a person who you give blanket authority says to you.

Any group, whatever its political spectrum or focus, comes from a particular viewpoint. Their mission is to recruit followers and supporters. Which is fine, but the onus remains on the potential follower/supporter to determine personally that what is claimed is the whole story.

Refugees over the ages have made wonderful Australian citizens. They came here because they did not have the choice to remain in their homeland. Largely they will never have a potential 'choice' to go 'back home'. Australia is it.

Australia is part of a global economy. We pride ourselves on taking part in global politics. The enormous refugee problem is also our problem. The refugees did not appear from a vacuum.

We are a nation made up of immigrants. There is an enormous pool of talent amongst refugees. Their perserverance, determination to survive, resourcefulness and desperate willingness to make a peaceful and stable home to my mind makes for excellent potential fellow citizens.

*Yabby, to compare any European country's demographics and immigration with Australia is like comparing apples with oranges to use a cliche.*

Not at all, because the problems caused by too many refugees in
Europe are not about space, they are social problems. Holland has
huge problems and is taking drastic steps to reduce asylum seekers.

I remind you that most refugees coming to Australia, crowd into
the cities of Sydney or Melbourne, they don't go out in into
the desert, where all the space is.

*The enormous refugee problem is also our problem. The refugees did not appear from a vacuum.*

Last time I checked, there were around 20 million refugees. Fact
is that Australia cannot take them all. The solution is to find
solutions in their own countries, for there will always be new
wars, new refugees from some conflict zone.

How many million do you think that Australia should accept?

The Greens will tell you that we should apply our bleeding hearts
to the refugee problem, yet they are concerned about the affect of
humanity on the environment. Fact is that as Australia increases
its human population, the pressures on the environment will grow.

So how many millions do the Greens think that we should accept?

Any answers from those Greens supporters?

I fully appreciate Phil Glendenning’s passion for finding out what has happened to returned asylum seekers. But there seem to be a bunch of factors missing from the story, that all need to be considered if the it is to be put into its proper perspective.

1. If strong border protection had not been exercised by Howard, and with urgency at the time of the Tampa, what do you think would have happened? We would have had a much much greater influx of desperate people, and very quickly from August 2001 on. Do you think that the determination of refugee status would have been better or worse, more lenient or harsher if thousands more people had been involved, with thousands more on the way?

2. Do you think that if a much larger and/or ongoing asylum seeker influx had occurred, that there wouldn’t have been a massive outcry from the Australian public, and that the Howard government wouldn’t have survived beyond the following election, after which there would have been a massive tightening of border protection, with a much harder attitude taken with asylum seekers?

continued

3. Is anyone seriously suggesting that the Australian authorities didn’t do their damnedest to properly determine all asylum seekers’ asylum status? Are they suggesting people were knowingly sent back to very precarious life-threatening situations? Isn’t it a case of best judgements being made on the information available at the time? Afterall, most asylum seekers were accepted as refugees, with the criteria for their determination being very much softer than for those that come to Australia via our offshore refugee programs. Is there any reason in the world why authorities would have sent people back to places that that they thought were gravely dangerous?

4. Refugee determination for many asylum seekers was notoriously difficult. It was extremely hard to know what to believe, what significance to place of different factors, etc. Mistakes could so easily be made. And then it is far too easy to get terribly hung up on a small number of unfortunate stories that really do fall right at the worst end the spectrum.


We mustn’t lose sight of the absolute need to maintain strong border control.

We must put a whole damn lot more effort into global refugee issues. We’ve GOT to increase our international aid expenditure to at least the UN recommended 0.7% of GDP and focus it on the most needy of life-threatening refugee-generating circumstances, and on sustainability.

And within a vastly reduced immigration program, we should be increasing our offshore refugee intake, to at least double the current level….and certainly no more than net zero immigration, which would be something less than 30 000 per annum.