Jumping the queue

[Pied Piper]

[pietillidie]

[Culprit]

Pied Piper -

[pietillidie]

[HAL]

Ah. When do you need that by?

[Culprit]

Whilst there is political gain to be made on this issue nothing will change.

[Dr Pie]

I've been reading this thread for some days and trying to avoid contributing. For one thing Pied Piper has done such an excellent job arguing the position that I would take that I have been happy to sit back and let him do it. For another, as the son of parents who came to Australia as refugees I tend to get emotional on this issue and seem to remember getting into quite heated arguments (with Culprit amongst others) last year. However...

There is something vaguely obscene about people sitting in safety and comfort in Australia and telling desperate people to get into queues. Yes I know that some people do it hard in Australia. We have unemployment, underpayment, we even have homeless and the conditions that some indigenous people in the outback live in are horrendous.

But no-one has been massacred in Australia for nearly a century. The last massacre of Aborigines was the Coniston massacre in the Northern Territory in 1928. The last official killings and torture of white people ended when transportation ended in WA in 1868 - nearly a century and a half ago.

People were being killed by the Government forces in Sri Lanka in large numbers last year and suspected Tiger sympathisers are still being tortured and killed this year according to respected journalists reporting for the Guardian and the BBC. Hazaris are being persecuted in Afghanistan, there are massacres and genocide in several different African countries and it isn't safe to be a dissenter or the wrong sort of Muslim in Iran, Iraq or parts of Pakistan. No, we can't take all of them, but as Pied Piper points out, we take less than countries with much larger populations than ours and much poorer economic conditions.

Meanwhile, while we don't have room for refugees, we are taking more immigrants than we have for years. Often immigrants with skills that are needed in their home countries (for example, why are we stealing doctors from India? If there is a major doctor shortage in rural Australia offer medical students the kind of bonds they offered teachers in the 60s. The Government pays your Uni fees and you have to practice in a town assigned by the Govt for three years after you graduate)

Tannin's point about money is irrelevant and also obscene. If the persecution is based on race or religion, not only are rich people as much at risk as poor, sometimes they are more at risk. Corrupt police and troops in a dictatorship or war situation are more likely to threaten people they can rob, than poor members of the same group who have nothing to offer but their bodies and their lives.

I have kept out of debates on Israel/Palestine that occasionally erupt on VPT because my position is a little more multilayered than that put forward by both sides of the debate on Nick's. However...

Only about five countries (and Australia was one of them) took significant numbers of Jewish refugees between 1936 and 1939. Even those five countries placed quotas and conditions on the number and type of refugees that they took. After the War when 6 million Jews had been killed many Western Countries felt guilty and wondered what they could do. It would seem many thought the way to assuage their guilt was to be uncritical in their support of Israel - even when Israel deserved criticism. That still seems to be the policy in Australia and America although Europe has abandoned it. Buty the World didn't learn the real lesson of the unsuccessful Jewish refugees of 1939. Which is -

IF SOMEBODY IS SO CERTAIN THAT HIS AND HIS fAMILY'S LIFE IS IN DANGER THAT HE IS PREPARED TO GIVE ALL HIS WORLDLY GOODS TO SOME DODGY BLOKE WITH A LEAKY BOAT, THEN HIS LIFE PROBABLY IS IN DANGER AND YOU SHOULD HELP HIM AND HIS FAMILY FIND REFUGE!!!

[pietillidie]

Culprit, this is such a minor matter in the scheme of things, yet you insist on making it a giant intolerable conundrum. Our main problem is going to be that we lack population and good relations in our region. Do you really believe when the population of the planet peaks at 9 or 10 billion people that Australia is going to have a mere have 30 million? The Europeans are doing what they need to do to ensure their future security and competitiveness, yet we sit here in the fastest-developing region on the planet fantasising that we can float about empty in the Pacific.

[Culprit]

Great post Dr Pie and I respect your view as I do pitillidie. I have a different view and whilst I use to view immigration differently I have to say my view has changed due to life's experiences. I have seen people abuse the system first hand which has changed my view.

I understand where you are coming from and why.

This is an issue that elects parties into Government. This is an issue that the media sensationalise. This is an issue that gets the blood flowing. This issue is small by nature but is massive in influence.

[pietillidie]

But they're trying to trick us, aren't they Dr. Pie? They dress up as peasants, drill holes in their boats and grubby themselves up for what is really an effort to grab a position at Tafe by way of a pleasure cruise through the Indonesian Archipelago

[pietillidie]

Fair enough, Culprit. Perhaps the main problem now is that Australia needs a new narrative about its position in the changing world. I think we've lost a lot of courage and have retreated, yet the huge challenges in our region are only beginning. No one has tried to explain what's happening to people, and all they do is see conflict on their TVs on a nightly basis.

[HAL]

You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.

[Culprit]

[Tannin]

Pietilidie, if you want to live in an overpopulated disaster of a country, then farrk off out of this place. Go to some other p[lace - any other place, for they are all of them overpopulated, which is apparently what you want. This is the last continent on earth that is not yet comprehensively destroyed, not yet overrun with hordes of people, and you actually admit that you want to destroy this place too.

Sorry, your credibility just sank to absolute zero.

PS: I strongly recommend that anyone wanting to reply to this post do so in a new thread. The mad desire to destroy Australia with overpopulation have very, very little to do with the illegal immigration debate, and the two matters should be kept quite separate.

[Tannin]

Dr Pie, why it is "obscene" to discuss the disgraceful way our current refugee policy discriminates against the poor in favour of the rich? What have you got against poor people who cannot afford to get to Indonesia and stump up thousands for a smuggler? Why do you want to give preference to the relatively wealthy refugees on boats and leave the poor ones to rot in camps? That's what you are arguing for.