Jewely I am what I am a rough nut unlikely to change or pretend I think other than I do.
You are ok in my books we may well get that cupa one day.
But you are out of your depth in this thread.
truly the Colombo plan was to feed educate and rebuild after the war, do not look for racist faults in us, let master wade in mud of his own making AS continue to be lost in a world that never existed.
And you yourself must separate the idea all boat people are Muslims and that s why we dislike them , not true.
Hey I dislike every religion does that make me racist?
I fear some Muslims, do not want the people who killed in that city in the last few minutes in my country racist is it to think like that?
Would Kiwi land take every boat person, should they?
lets all starve together what a fun idea.
Surely my Friend you see a danger in too many coming black white any color?
Has master seen the country just 40 klm in from the sea? dams dry for years, cattle sheep even family horses dead in the paddocks.
Who pays the costs? the social services bills? we can not feed our pensioners now, fear long term increasing costs but ignore How we pay those we take in.
We do take them in from every country right now

“You are ok in my books we may well get that cupa one day.”

Sweet.

“But you are out of your depth in this thread.”

Belly, seriously, I am out of my depth on this whole site.

“And you yourself must separate the idea all boat people are Muslims..."

My own image of boat people is that they are all like peasant Asian looking people with unknown religions. After my time in Saudi I kinda see all Muslims as chauffer driven rich buggers.

“Hey I dislike every religion does that make me racist?”

No, I don’t think you are racist Belly.

“I fear some Muslims, do not want the people who killed in that city in the last few minutes in my country racist is it to think like that?”

I fear the Americans, they get away with it, no media invited.

“Would Kiwi land take every boat person, should they?”

Don’t know, we call ‘em FOB’s and they are from the surrounding islands.

“Surely my Friend you see a danger in too many coming black white any color?”

I don’t. But I am from a smaller country with a population probably smaller than Melbourne. Once I had two little girls in foster care, they had to go to Melbourne from NZ. The trip was delayed and delayed because foster parents could not be found in the whole of Melbourne. I know, you love my little stories that come from nowhere and mean nothing.

At 15 I went on a caravan holiday with my parents right round Aussie, great big figure 8 through Alice. Been in every state and to every major city, through deserts and amazing fields of green; this country is huge.[smile]

“Who pays the costs? the social services bills? we can not feed our pensioners now, fear long term increasing costs but ignore How we pay those we take in.”

Stop wasting money, your government wastes it here on stupid things and unnecessary things. The time frame your politicians are in is too small, you need a time frame that demands accountability. Portfolios too flexible.

Antonios
Thanks for responding. At least I now can understand somewhat of where you are, I even agree to some extent.

1. I disagree, it would be too tough not to be able to do some work. The Indian students bashings has highlighted the whole foreign students 'industry' and there seems to be cause for concern about many aspects. When some students openly say they only came here to get permanent residency visas, and apparently some foreign media advertise that permanent residency visas will be forthcoming, I think there is need to have a close look at the whole industry. No doubt some of these young people are being ripped off and that cannot be condoned.

2. I too support REFUGEES. But I do not define those that fly most of the way and bribe officials and pay large ammounts to gate crash our shores, as refugees. I do not care what race or religion they are, if they are deceiving us and pulling the wool over our eyes then NO I do not want them. Bring others in that are genuine from anywhere.

3. I agree with you about not bringing 457 temporary workers here, but train our own. Lack of skilled employees here is failure by government and business. It is shamefull that we steal workers that poorer countries have trained. This and many of the foreign students is only another backdoor method of uping migration by 54000 each year and not saying.

4. The family reunion provissions seem to be too broad and need to be looked at. I think it has been a bit of a rort and needs tightening

Pied Piper
"FACT: Migrants, throughout our history and to this day, have made FANTASTIC citizens".

This is far to broad and needs qualifying. If you said some, many or most migrants, and replaced fantastic with good, I would agree.

"FACT: Refugees and migrants are no better, and no worse, than the people already here." Agreed. But that does not mean we should allow those in that have shown to be be not good for our communty.

[FACT: Migrants, throughout our history and to this day, have made FANTASTIC citizens.]
Banjo baby: “This is far too broad and needs qualifying. If you said some, many or most migrants, and replaced fantastic with good, I would agree. “

Or - Fact: All migrants I personally know throughout my history have made FANTASTIC citizens”

[FACT: Refugees and migrants are no better, and no worse, than the people already here.]
Banjo baby: “Agreed. But that does not mean we should allow those in that have shown to be not good for our community.”

Ah but where is the line and after what time period can they be returned and to where? A boat? What if they have kids?

In NZ I knew a lovely German couple when younger, they had three kids and years later were deported kids and all because he signed his card on the aeroplane wrong. It sucked, she was the only pre-school teacher in their small rural town and they owned the only petrol station/store in town. They had arrived with nothing to NZ but both were hard workers. Both had been raised in Berlin ghettos and seen people shot dead before 8 years old. They wanted a better life. He signed the card wrong copying the man next to him on the plane because at that point could not read English.

A few years earlier my partner (now ex) and I offered to marry them but they wouldn’t – too honest.

“Ok let's get back to the original, and ongoing, 2 purposes of this thread for many people here:”

Yes Master, let’s get back into some sensible discussion.

So could you outline just what it is that you want to see happen with asylum seekers / refugees / immigrants?

Maybe you have already, in which case can you point me to the relevant posts please.

Thanks.

Master: << People who have a more "real" interest in the environment like Ludwig, don't criticise the paranoid filled scare mongering from the likes of Belly/Banjo/cornflower because he's basically in agreement with them. The "environment" is their straw man argument. >>

I think this is a very perceptive observation - which accords closely with my own analysis of the discourse about 'boat people' in this forum. While I don't agree with Master about the capacity for Australia's environment to support a greater population than we have, I welcome his obvious humanitarianism.

Along with TPP (who is just wonderful), Antonios and various others, Master provides a decent, compassionate and caring approach to what is undoubtedly going to become an increasingly vexatious issue for not only Australians, but pretty well everybody in relatively affluent countries. There are going to be many more legitimate refugees seeking asylum in years to come, and (as I said much earlier in this thread) we need to collectively come up with a better approach than erecting a metaphorical fence around Australia and trying to keep them out.

I don't suggest that we should have completely open borders, but we need urgently to establish procedures and facilities that would remove the need for asylum seekers to undertake the desperate and dangerous act of trying to reach Australia by boat, organised by people smugglers. Until we do, we are legally and morally obliged to accept them.

Banjo will probably be surprised that I agree with much of his last post. In fact, if the 'boat people' haters were to drop their bigotry, we'd probably all be surprised by how much we actually agree upon :)

And Ludwig - it's bloody freezing here, thanks very much. We were probably the coldest place in Queensland today - sleet yesterday, heavy frost predicted tomorrow. Magnetic Island or Pallarenda would be good right now ;)

Also, I note that you sidestepped Master's point above. I don't suppose you'd care to address it?