Apols Mareelorraine,

Of course democracy needs to be a broad church with a diversity of opinions. I just don't agree with yours.

Back on message re the article, it seems clear to me that the Unis and Tafes didn't know what to do and the media reporting of assaults kept the fires burning - and then the two colleges (three now I think) closed.

I like the idea of a national Indian TV campaign.

CJ Morgan is right in that we need to disconnect the 'visa for residency' avenue. About one in 10 international students make application to stay. How many hairdressers and welfare helpers do we need?

I think the itnernational student market grew too fast, and dare I say it, even some of the big unis turned a blind eye.

I think some of these issues should be seperated.

Law and Order is breaking down in Melbourne and Sydney and the reason there is more known about the Indian students is because it was reported in the Indian press. Our own press being too happy to take the ALP press releases as "investigative journalism" and leave it at that. Of course there's always a chance to embarass the opposition and that's way more important than questioning the current government's performance, isn't it?

The behaviour of thugs, Australian or not, in the cities is in complete disregard to the law and does not discriminate. the Indians are hot items right now so the press see some bad news and have jumped onto it. It's not as if there is suddenly a breakdown in Law and Order, it's been breaking down for some time, since the courts tend to forgive not punish.

Public Transport is a joke in the big cities and not safe at all, nor will it be when the government outsources security to various agencies who all subcontract to the lowest bidder.

The governments in Victoria and NSW have bled money off to various social programs and now there is not enough policing, no surprise. We have a way to deal with this, we vote them out at the next election. Unless they trade it off for something else of course, like no dams, or art in the parks or of course taxes on the rich.

The breakdown in services is our own fault for allowing the governments to manipulate the basic agenda of what a government is supposed to do, and don't get me started on supply of water and electricity!

Spin Doctor King ignores the worst evil:the corruption of universities who refuse to fail full fee paying overseas sudents, however bad their English. Leslie

I studied in Australia during 2003-05 and returned to India after finishing my studies. At that time there was no violence on Indians in Melbourne through i observed that some sort of ignorance exists in Australians about Indians, but that cannot be termed as racism. When i was a student majority of the Indian students were attending universities studying IT, Electronics, Engineering, Accountacy, Business etc. Now overwhelming majority goes to colleges to study cooking, hair dressing and hospitality. If they come back with a cooking diploma from unkown college in an alien country, will they get job in India?. No way, their diploma certificates are not even recognised in India. This is nothing but an immigration scam. I chose Australia because i wanted to specialise in VLSI design and i had positive opinion about Australia like it's a developed country and i will have ample opportunities like in the US. I returned because i found out in Australia that semiconductor industry is non existent in Australia and India is a land of opportunities as i can get the job i wanted i.e. designing microchips. I had an option of getting Australian permanant residency and do some odd jobs but i don't wanted to. If you have skills you can survive anywhere but if you do cooking diploma you have remain in Australia at any cost.

Whatever is going on it needs to be transparent, to the Australian electorate and to fee paying customers that come here for their education/residence dupe. I don't recall a political party descibing a policy which allows foreigners to buy their way into the country via an education pretence. Oh yeah they tell you all about the money, x billion dollars in foreign education injected into the Australian economy, but they won't tell us about the trade-off, that in many cases the students are effectively buying residence. Do we want these residents, are they the best for Australia, do we get to have a say? In seems also a large portion of the money is going to these rank second tier education providers, come to Australia and learn how to cook, how to wait tables, pass a multiple-choice IT exam. Anyone who's visited a developing world nation such as India will appreciate how great the incentive is to take advantage of residency opportunities to the first world, even middle class living is still decrepit compared to living in Australia's more lowly suburbs. With a billion people in India it doesn't take many of them to create a long willing line of pay per residence applicants, now call me Pauline Hanson if you wish but our 20 million can very easily be swamped when you leave these taps open long enough.

So I'm the racist here?

ozzie: << If you bothered to do some searching you would in fact find the majority of the attacks are from foreigners bringing their customs of violence here to Australia. Last year there was an uproar from the indian taxi drivers being assaulted. Of 12 attacks, 10 drivers reported that their attackers had dark skin. >>

If you bothered to provide some kind of evidence for this claim I might believe you. I've seen this claim made at various blogs, but strangely nobody's provided a link to a reputable source for verification.

Besides which, you seem to think that immigrants and people with "dark skin" aren't Australian. I've said that I think that the claims of racism are exaggerated - it doesn't matter what the ethnicity of the attackers is, the fact is that Indian students have reportedly been attacked at disproportionate rates and it's Australian residents and/or citizens who are apparently doing it, regardless of their ethnic background or skin colour.

Leslie - do you have any evidence of "universities who refuse to fail full fee paying overseas sudents, however bad their English"? If that is occurring it certainly should be stopped, but again I suspect that this is simply apocryphal scuttlebutt circulated by racist Australian underachievers.