Of course this is nothing new. People have been 'overstaying' their visas forever. Nothing unique there. And to point fingers at governments of different flavours is a waste of time.

From my recollection it was the Labor Party who started the dog whistle about 'boat people' and the Liberal Party just took it over.

What is deeply concerning is the illegality around the 457 visas. No wonder workers who came here under that scheme have always been too scared to report underpayment and other illegalities.

The 457 visas, as a mother of young people, have never sat easily with me. I do not understand why Australians are not being trained instead. 457 visas should only have been a very short term solution. Until enough Australians were trained. If that had happened, we might not have had a sky rocketing unemployment.

Yvonne,

"From my recollection it was the Labor Party who started the dog whistle about 'boat people' and the Liberal Party just took it over."

Lol!

What they "took over' was Hanson's mantle as a bigotry-monger. Once they saw her scoop up the votes, it was only a matter of time to dispatch her and pinch her platform.

You also forget that Morrison was walking around tooting the boat people horn extremely loudly and often when in Opposition.

Of course, all that changed when he launched his particular brand of sadistic torment - titled Border Farce....

And all of this goes to show that OSB was more about getting a vote than "protecting borders"...which some of us realised a long time ago.

What's the "workable" alternative Poirot? Morrison is a disgusting, revolting individual, but he has popular support. So let's say we get rid of Morrison and the Libs, then we have Labor. The only real difference between the Libs and Labor is that the Libs don't tell us of their savage mistreatment of asylum seekers, whereas Labor will let us know of "their" mistreatment of asylum seekers.

The third alternative? The hopeless Greens, who are guaranteed to send Australia into bankruptcy within a year or two. So the asylum seekers will then be living in a third world nation, Australia.

There is NO workable alternative. Why? Because of the inhumanity of the majority of the Australia population itself.

Yvonne,
Perhaps it has something to do with the myth that there are jobs "Australians won't do"?
There are certainly jobs which Australians won't do for next to nothing like the "students" will, you do understand that there are people working for as little as $50 a day cash in hand in the cleaning, construction and hospitality industries?
Do you wonder why there are so many young Irish and other EU citizens working here under false pretences when they're being undercut in the same way by Eastern Europeans and Asians working for 20 euros a day?

I'll give you an example:
Last year I quoted to solid plaster a small Victorian terrace house in the inner city, there were many complications, the walls were grossly out of plumb and because they'd been stripped of plaster and sealed that meant a more laborious process to cement render, I'd also have had to do a lot of bricklaying to rectify past modifications and there was rising damp which needed to be fixed.
My price was $15,000 inclusive of GST.
The owner cried poor so I gave him a price to fix the most pressing issues, he agreed and the bill was something like $1000 in the end but
while I was working on the house I noticed pinned to the cork board in the kitchen a plastering quote from a Mr Li scrawled on the back of an envelope.
The Chinese price to do the same work was a shade over $5000.
A few weeks later the owner called me up and said he'd had a fight with Mr Li, that he'd removed bricks and left parts of the walls unstable and had generally screwed up the job and could I come and have a look at it?
Sure I said, but I want $5000 to start, $5000 when the render is done and $5,000 on completion.
He said a rude word and hung up on me.

Cont.
So what's up with that?
A dodgy Aussie tradesman would have charged MORE than me and still done inferior work but the Chinese undercut everyone, why?
Seriously, the Chinese will line a house for $4000 and do it in three days, why not charge double and make even more money?
There's no logical answer save for the notion that perhaps, just perhaps they're colluding to drive down prices, run people like me out of business and then monopolise the market.
It's not like they have form for that sort of behaviour right? *cough*Honiara* cough* Lae* *cough*Johannesburg

Paul, can you give us a bit more perspective on this issue. It seems like everyone here is debating it without really understanding just what is going on.

How many people are coming by plane each year and claiming asylum?

How are their claims assessed?

How many people who some might assume to be illegal entrants are just visa overstayers who are eventually forced to go home?
.

<< Josephus, you're an idiot. >>

Haahahaaa Jay123. If that isn’t utter hypocrisy, nothing is!

<< Currently we are an uncivilised species… >>

You speak for yourself there for sure.

You’re a funny fellow. Keep up the entertaining quips!! ( :>)