It's not refugees picking fruit, it's backpackers and 457 visa holders.

Big Nana,

That is correct. Fruit pickers are people on working holidays. They, and 457 visa holders have nothing do with the 192,000 or so immigration intake. We just don't know what happens to most immigrants after they arrive here. Do they work? Are they on welfare? How do we manage to absorb so many people when our population is only 25 million, and there is a 6-7% unemployment rate. What about the almost 1 million non-citizens who are paid welfare. Why were they brought here?

These are questions that need to be asked of our now virtually unaccountable politicians.

Big Nana,

Well picked.

It should be mentioned too that where treated kindly and that is easy enough to do, although some councils are slow to wake up, those positive, optimistic, adventure-loving, p/t working, young backpackers, many of whom are students and can confidently be expected to bring their families next time for tourism.

There is a delayed, significant benefit for Australian tourism in welcoming them now and giving them some little luxuries like cheap campsites, clean public conveniences, cooking and hot water in parks and rest areas.

A bloke very close to my family aged 43, started work in a Newcastle factory making washery screens for coal mines, when he was 16. He worked his way from the ground up and ended up Production Manager for the past 5 years of his employment with that company.

In 2013 the company passed out of Australian hands and was sold to an overseas company and people started losing their jobs, starting with the reps. Nothing else happened for awhile then they were told the Newcastle site was closing and they were moving to Brisbane, all factory hands were paid off. Our friend was offered a job as Production Manager in the new plant in Brisbane and went up there for a trial, the factory was fully staffed on the floor with Philipino's on 457's, their english was very minimal and all instructions went through the Philipino interpreter. He and the general manager were the only aussies.

He knew to move his whole family to Brisbane (his wife has a great government job, his kids settled in school, one in high school) and to work in the circumstances he found himself was a no go so took redundancy and left the company. He was out of work for nearly a year then finally landed a good job albeit starting pretty much from the bottom again and on less money than he was used to.

Some of those blokes that were laid off in their late 40's and early 50's never did find new jobs, 12 months later the Newcastle factory re-opened with all new staff and all new, much lower contracts, some of the old workers re-applied but were shocked at the new conditions and much lower wages and none were re-employed.

It seems the government is happy to pay the dole to that 90 odd men that lost their jobs to the 457's and it beggars belief that the company re-opened 12 months later. It's all very shifty and I wonder how many times this sort of thing happens and is probably why our welfare bill is so huge

To Foxy and other supporters of immigration, please tell me, how do we pay for ANYONE ELSE when we cant provide for everyone hear now?

I have no problem with anyone provided one, they have something to offer, and two, as long as we dont have to cut funding to our own people in order to pay for them.

You dont borrow to pay for someone elses morgtage do you.

Hi Foxy.
People who arrive on some kind of temporary visa are not counted as immigrants. Only if they get permanent visa, they are counted, regardless of when they arrived. They are not counted twice. Under your suggestion, those 91, 000 would never be counted as immigrants.