Refugees

Australian refugee policy never ceases to amaze me. I cannot understand why we, as a “civilised nation” make it such a contentious issue and cannot come to a national agreement on a long term solution. Nothing is working to date!

Surely the root cause is the fact that people are fleeing areas that are plain too unpleasant to live in. Lets take thousands of Somalis, Zimbabweans and whoever else has problems but lets do it sensibly.

As an ex African born of a District Commissioner in Tanzania and lived in SA it is stark staring obvious that the whole continent is out of control. There are a myriad of reasons but the principle one is the fact that they remain highly uneducated to this day.

Bring them over here in droves but bring them over on a visa that allows them enough time to gain experience in their chosen profession and send them back with a mission to serve their own countries.

The millions that are spent on the whole refugee process at the moment combined with the aid money that gets pissed up against the wall by baboons like Mugabe should be sufficient incentive to look at a long term solution to what is becoming very old hat. The liberal approach has reaped many benefits but it is time to force change on them by taking over their education systems and whatever else is hindering their progress, including complete control of their budgets.

This rant was the result of seeing a very lonely and out of place 6'6” Somali walking home last night. Africans are such a vibrant people and I though how depressing it must be for him to have to walk blocks and blocks without talking to anyone. Anyone who has been there will know what I am talking about. When you have have heard Zulu women singing conversations across valleys you can appreciate how connected they are and how out of place they must feel here.

Rant over!

My work colleague/flat mate was born in Zimbabwe. An Indian with a Russian name raised in Canada, now an Australian. Quite the mix.

There is no way in hell he'd go back to Zimbabwe.

I still can't see why the focus on the hundreds arriving by boat as opposed to the tens of thousands arriving by plane. Anyone?

I wonder if it were white people on that boat if it would be the same? Like a bunch of white people that emigrated there decades ago for work or whatever.

As far as I can see the people arriving by plane have passports, and visas and have been cleared by immigration to be on Aussie soil to begin with.

The problem the gov faces is , I think, that if they start letting people come in the flood will begin. the boat will become ships........
. although Australia looks like it can handle plenty more people, in reality the land is struggling to cope with what we have now if we intend to maintain the standard of living we now have.
we have shortages of water, housing,have allowed ourselves to become reliant on imports.
Having said that , I dont labme them for trying , and I reckon its a smart move to stay on that ship, there are plenty of good reasons not to get off in Indonesia.
good luck to them, i hope they make to our mainland

We are being played for fools because of our high standards of morality toward helping our fellow men. Unfortunately some of those we help accept our help but hate us all the more for it.

A thing to keep in mind is that today, a democraticly elected government rarely if ever acts for the benefit of, or according to the will of the people that elect it.

I like the Ancient Greek's policy and practice of democracy. If the locally elected representative did not represent (re-present) the will of his constituents at parliament, he would be executed by hanging and they would send a new re presenter.

The Party System only works for the party members. They have the party and we the people pay for it.

so why haven't you gone back on a "mission to serve your country"?

because you could afford to emigrate and "they" can't, then "they" should only be allowed to stay temporarily?

Yes, I had a choice of emigrating here but I did so by choice after undergoing an education in England for four years in the rain. Refugees have no choice.

You don't know that I am not contributing in some way which I am, as are you if you are paying taxes. I am in other ways to but it has no relevance to the debate.

I was trying to start a discussion about solving the problem of refugees.

My premiss is that functioning democracies like ours which have a huge amount of clout have the capability of realising a solution with all of the refugee problems that are caused by poverty, particularly Africans.

Religion is another story.

We do not do so because it is a divisive issue which politicians can exploit to their own advantage, the longer it goes on the more they are paid.

Most first world countries are currently funding very corrupt governments inadvertently or otherwise. People are fleeing their homelands looking for somewhere where they can live without fear of dying before they reach old age. That is a pretty crap reason to have to leave your family and your heritage.

Yes I left South Africa by my own choice. I am British by birth though I only lived in England for four years in the early eighties. At the age of 11 on moving to RSA from Tanzania in 1966 it was painfully obvious that apartheid was a different situation.

The colonials disrupted a way of life in Africa irreparably. It was being done in a small way along the coast for centuries as it was a prime hunting ground for slaves If you want to know how badly read The State of Africa by Meredith.

We are pouring billions of dollars into a continent that has seen some of the most tragic happenings of the last century and they continue to happen today. and people will continue to leave as long as it remains miserable.

Bob Geldorf's approach of unlimited aid has failed miserably.

Go to Africa and compare the structure that we have here and ask yourself how long it would take to achieve what we have achieved over the last 400 years in a Westminster system. They cannot do it without serious intervention. They just do not have the personnel. Any one who knows Africans knows that they are more than capable given the opportunity.

In today's global Economy their countries are disruptive and costly neighbours. They need managing until they can be handed a functioning boat. Otherwise they will continue to cost us a lot of money and fracture society here.

How good would it be if everyone who came here came here by choice or invitation not under duress, without a chip on their shoulder.

If a stranger knocked on your back door, would you let them in?

Asylum-seekers arrive by plane, not boat
By Claire Harvey
The Sunday Telegraph
October 25, 2009 08:15am

EVERY day, at least 13 asylum-seekers enter Australia through airports, representing 30 times the number of boat people that are supposedly "flooding" across our maritime borders.

A total of 4768 "plane people" - more than 96 per cent of applicants for refugee status - arrived by aircraft in 2008 on legitimate tourist, business and other visas compared with 161 who arrived by boat during the same period, the Sunday Telegraph reports.

And plane people are much less likely than boat people to be genuine refugees, with only about 40-60 per cent granted protection visas, compared with 85-90 per cent of boat people who are found to be genuine refugees.

In 2007-08, 3987 claims were received and 1930 of these were approved.

But whereas boat people are detained on Christmas Island while their claims are processed, plane people live in the community and they are allowed to work under policy changes introduced by the Rudd government.

Experts say few Australians understand that the boat people represent just a small fraction of our refugee intake - and these asylum-seekers are unfairly vilified by "expedient" politicians.

Exact plane-people figures for 2009 are not yet available, but an Immigration Department spokesman said the figure was likely to have increased at a similar rate to that of boat arrivals, which grew from 161 to 1799 since last year, in response to increased pressures within the region, including the end of civil war in Sri Lanka, which has seen many ethnic Tamils fleeing persecution.

An analysis by The Sunday Telegraph of immigration records shows that Sri Lankans represented more than 28 per cent of "plane people" who successfully applied for protection visas in 2007-08, followed by Chinese (26 per cent), Iraqis (14 per cent) and Pakistanis (7.6 per cent). Of the plane people found to be non-genuine refugees, many are Indonesian, Malaysian, Indian and Chinese.

Chinese represent 30 per cent of plane people who apply for refuge, followed by Sri Lankans (8 per cent), Malaysians, Indonesians, Iraqis and then Indians.

Australia will take 13,750 refugees through its humanitarian program in 2009-10, an increase of 250 on last year.

It is expected that Sri Lankans will represent an increased proportion of that intake, which in previous years has been dominated by Burmese, Iraqis, Afghans, Sudanese, Liberians, Congolese and Burundians.

Politicians' "expedient obsession" with boat people is clouding the truth about Australia's refugee flows, according to migration law expert Professor Mary Crock, of Sydney University Law School.

"It's a great mystery why people get upset about boats -- and it's disappointing that our Prime Minister is playing to the old politics," Professor Crock said.

"We have a small number of arrivals and the ones who arrive by boat are nearly always genuine refugees."

just in this morning. Muslim newspaper warning Australia
that we must join asian muslim nations or be taken over,
story on Kwoff news, attributed to The Australian news paper.
A land of few people will be trampled by the hordes.