Hey Yuyu, I came to be an Aussie and for my children to be Australians but you covered the Kiwi’s nicely. Aussie and NZ probably are the most similar to each other since we have cornflakes, vegemite and both insist we invented the pavlova.

My children’s Pilipino and Greek friends parents are citizens and their lives and familes are here as well as no intention of being anywhere else. My Dutch builder knows more about Aussie history than anyone else I have met. I have a Chinese friend who sneaks past something he calls a “the countries boarder router” to talk to me, he hates his country.

When you arrive as an adult it is difficult making new friends and often I think some find it more comfortable to seek out their own kind. But most make the move wanting to be part of the whole and to fit in with their new society and where their children will grow up. The dream.

I feel it is the opportunity that is lacking rather than the willingness to do it.

Sorry Lexi I meant that I hadn’t been the brunt of intolerance in Aussie. When I first arrived two Maori boys came over and lived with us for awhile. I’ve had Samoan, Indian, and Aboriginal foster children, interesting going shopping with a rainbow of children. My neighbors here keep being referred to as Lebs which they aren’t, and my time in Saudi Arabia where I was the brunt of intolerance daily. There is a street around where I live where if my daughter has to walk down it she calls me as she walks past the house where some young Lebanese men yell obscenities at her as she goes by.

I don’t have an answer for it.

Piper,

I don't have an answer for intolerance either. But everything is relative, everything has its story; and everyone has obstacles to overcome. They are our greatest teachers. Each of us goes through transitions and transformations. The important thing I guess is that we acknowledge them and learn from them.

Pericles:>> If this was supposed to explain anything, sonofgloin, it most assuredly didn't.<<

Read it again, he said glibly.

Pericles:>> It would appear that you accept that employed migrants add to the economy, rather than subtract from it. In my language, that means that they "support" the economy, rather than the economy supporting them.<<

P, either way works, as long as the economy can produce the jobs.

Pericles:>> So how do you figure "benefits other than that is what partially or fully supports them"? They are either working, or on benefits, surely?<<

Surely not, in Australia many benefits allow you to work to a dollar threshold without affecting your entitlement, surely this is so P.

Pericles:>> And frankly, the waffle about benefits being essential to all the service jobs makes no sense either.<<

Frankly my observation is that the total welfare budget is over $20 billion and it gets spent here, not in Indonesia, not in the USA it gets spent here. Take that out of our domestic economy and you say no jobs will go? P none of what I say makes sense to you does it?

Pericles:>> I'm still trying to work out exactly where you see a problem. Is it the language? I thought we'd covered that off.<<

Keep trying. You stick with the lowest common denominator when inferring that one is a racist fool don't you.

TBC

So we're sending our jobs and manufacturing industries overseas and selling off much of the rest?

I would imagine this is the result of our own companies and private business owners doing this for immediate personal gain rather than the fault of migrant levels decades ago.

The second generation of migrants in particular have contributed a great deal to this nation.

China and others don't come over here and simply buy things, we offer to sell them first and don't seem to care where the money come from.

Unless there are some hard facts to back up those assertions, they are no more than simply scapegoating a specific group.

I suppose we should be thankful for small mercies, sonofgloin.

>>You stick with the lowest common denominator when inferring that one is a racist fool don't you.<<

At least no-one has followed up on the innuendo of your "religious chasm" observation.

That's a Good Thing.

But your welfare budget analysis still confuses me.

>>Frankly my observation is that the total welfare budget is over $20 billion and it gets spent here, not in Indonesia, not in the USA it gets spent here. Take that out of our domestic economy and you say no jobs will go?<<

Where does the "welfare budget" come from, sonofgloin?

Why, from taxation, Mr Pericles. From taxation, most assuredly. Yes indeed, that's where the $20 billion comes from, I'm sure of it.

So if you reduced the "welfare budget" to zero, sonofgloin, would the $20 billion disappear? Would it suddenly fly to Indonesia, or the USA? Or would it continue to exist within our economy?

That's right. It would stay. In the pockets of businesses who could use it to employ lots more people, expand their businesses, and increase our export earnings. And in the pockets of workers, who could use it to keep the rest of the economy bright and shiny and prosperous.

So, to help me understand you, you have no problem with migrants so long as the economy continues to grow, in order to provide them with jobs? And if they are working, and supporting their families, you have no concerns at all?

So where exactly is the "social time bomb, with a short fuse"?

Ah, here it is.

>>...the enclaves of unemployed immigrants who are over represented in the unemployment statistics<<

How about, instead of going round the houses with this "first language" furphy, provide us with statistics on unemployment among immigrants?

The only migrants I know work their tiny little butts off. And their kids put in seriously long hours at schoolwork, too.

But I'm always open to being edumacated.

Wobbles">> So we're sending our jobs and manufacturing industries overseas and selling off much of the rest?<<

Er yes Wobbles we don't have much left to send off shore but it is still moving north.

wobbles">> I would imagine this is the result of our own companies and private business owners doing this for immediate personal gain rather than the fault of migrant levels decades ago.<<

What a simplistic statement, I never mentioned jobs in jeopardy because of migration, I said several times we don't have the jobs whether the migrants were here or not, thus the crux of my observation is opaque to you and your response ill founded.

I mentioned that the government is to blame for allowing the corporates to do what is imperative for their business whether it serves the community in the long term or not.