Waking up Australia to compassion.

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Originally Posted by Chucaro

I have arrived to the conclusion that many of these new comers take for granted the good will of the Australians and abuse it.
Perhaps I am wrong?

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I think there is an element of truth in that, but I think it is a minority of the newcomers. In my opinion, if we did not get involved in the Middle Eastern Wars, we would not be morally obliged to take refugees, from Iraq & Afganistan, who do not come by the front door. We could then vet people in refugee camps, and accept the genuine refugee, & not the smarties using the system. However, we did go blindly in, and are forced to live with the consequences. Those who scream about boat people now, should have marched in the street against our involvement in the Iraq & Afganistan Wars, & stopped our involvement. You reap what you sow, & before people start talking about Sri Lankan boat people, they just jumped on the band wagon. BTW, how many boat people does South Africa take? Bob

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Originally Posted by gusthedog

Thanks for sharing that Wrinklearthur. I agree that Australians do need to be more compassionate in their approach to people seeking asylum. I began reading the varied responses to your original post but gave up due to the amazing bigotry, zealotry and racism shown by the majority of responses. I am dumbfounded by the outright hatred and lack of humility shown by AULRO members. Wake up to yourself people. I often get upset by the lack of humility on the forum and my wife always says, you can't change peoples minds on a forum on the net. I guess she's right. But to the haters out there - you suck big time and karma is a bitch. I hope yours is coming.

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People can have an opinion about this topic that you dont agree with. Doing so doesnt make them racists or bigots. That is the cheap shot fallback position chosen by folks who cant see beyond the end of their noses. Folks with all of the answers but no solutions. You should take more pride in and show more respect for your country and its future. If you are so concerned about the fate of asylum seekers go abroad and donate your time to help them, or aren't you THAT concerned? Maybe it's just easier acting concerned and actively being disgusted at anyone who questions what might and might not be good for this country?

I am unashamedly more interested in the future of Australia than I am illegal immigrants or asylum seekers. That is prioritising what is important for the peope I love and their future, this is after all their country. It does not make me a racist or a bigot. A patriot maybe, which i guess would make you the opposite of a patriot?

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Originally Posted by gusthedog

Thanks for sharing that Wrinklearthur. I agree that Australians do need to be more compassionate in their approach to people seeking asylum. I began reading the varied responses to your original post but gave up due to the amazing bigotry, zealotry and racism shown by the majority of responses. I am dumbfounded by the outright hatred and lack of humility shown by AULRO members. Wake up to yourself people. I often get upset by the lack of humility on the forum and my wife always says, you can't change peoples minds on a forum on the net. I guess she's right. But to the haters out there - you suck big time and karma is a bitch. I hope yours is coming.

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do you think there should be an x number of peoples coming to Australia that we can support and then no more or do you think if 5 million wanted to come to Australia that will be okay

Isn't it strange how the liberal minority always think they are always right, have the loudest voices & believe that the majority are always wrong. Somehow, the majority are made to feel like lepers by the minorities because of their beliefs & end up doing/thinking/believing the political correct version. Politicians do politically correct things instead of what the silent majority wants. Eventually, the silent majority will have had enough & will rebel. The boats will then get turned back.

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Originally Posted by amtravic1

Every one here is entitled to their own opinion. What makes you think yours is any more correct than any one else's. Lucky people with opinions such as mine do not post what we really feel about the bleeding hearts isn't it. Then again the software would most likely not let me say that.
And this has nothing to do with racism, every person, no matter what race is ok with me. The problem is with queue jumpers and people that come to Australia and have no intention of fitting in to our society, and demand we conform to their beliefs.

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Who is demanding that you conform to their beliefs? And are you saying that if you were in their shoes and that your family was at risk you wouldn't try to escape it anyway you can? Do you think that a person making a decision to come here on a boat has any other options?

And bleeding hearts is total baloney. All I'm asking is that people treat each other like people. I'm not a Christian but "do unto others" does spring to mind.

According to a refugee expert on ABC radio national last week, Australia has the highest percentage of genuine refugees trying to get here. He was saying that historically 94% of boat of so called "boat people" coming to Australia are genuine refugees fleeing persecution. Not economic migrants. Not people on a lovely sea cruise. People fleeing murder, torture, rape, etc etc. the next highest percentage of genuine refugees was people escaping to France. Only 70% of them were actually refugees.

We need border controls. We need to verify people's stories. We can't just let anyone in. But Abbot stating that the current media ban on boat arrivals is so that people smugglers don't know if they are successful is utter bollox. More like out of sight out of mind. Most of the voting public won't even remember the issue next election because it's not in their face.

I'm not asking you to change anything other than seeing people as people first. They are all someone's family and we should treat them accordingly.

OK, it appears again that people do not know the difference between an Assylum Seeker and a Refugee.

An Assylum Seeker is any person, who, from fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, social group, or political opinion, has crossed an international frontier into a country in which he or she HOPES to be granted REFUGEE status.

Read it twice and understand it....

A REFUGEE is a person who is outside his or her country of origin or habitual residence because he or she has suffered persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or because he or she is a member of a persecuted social group. Such a person MAY be referred to as an asylum seeker UNTIL recognised by the state where he or she makes his or her claim.

again read it twice and understand the differences...

now , back to the forum...........

Changed the text of a previous posting to something relevant to the thread.

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Originally Posted by wrinklearthur

I have a lot of respect for some of the immigrants that I have worked for in the past, they have included Albanian, British, Italian, Spanish and Polish. They are getting on with their lives here in Australia and prospering.

One chap I worked for, in the early 70's, arrived in the Hobart airport from Poland, He had literary, two bob in his pocket and his battered suitcase.
He now owns a million dollar security business, has a large family who have some excellent academic achievements and he has a home to be proud of.

On the other hand, there is a well known local critic of the boat people that lives at Bridgewater, he lives in a low rent housing department home on a disability pension, he hasn't got two bob to rub together but still can play the pokies and sponges rides into town. He is a member of a fifth generation Australian family.

These recent immigrant hopefuls now arriving in Australia, are prepare to get off their posterior's to make the effort to come half way around the world and under a lot of duress in the time it takes to get here.
They are not of the mind set that are expecting handouts, if we are spoiling that spark of wanting to achieve, by making them not to wan't for anything when they get here, then isn't that the wrong way for our authorities to go?

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Originally Posted by steane

People can have an opinion about this topic that you dont agree with. Doing so doesnt make them racists or bigots. That is the cheap shot fallback position chosen by folks who cant see beyond the end of their noses. Folks with all of the answers but no solutions. You should take more pride in and show more respect for your country and its future. If you are so concerned about the fate of asylum seekers go abroad and donate your time to help them, or aren't you THAT concerned? Maybe it's just easier acting concerned and actively being disgusted at anyone who questions what might and might not be good for this country?

I am unashamedly more interested in the future of Australia than I am illegal immigrants or asylum seekers. That is prioritising what is important for the peope I love and their future, this is after all their country. It does not make me a racist or a bigot. A patriot maybe, which i guess would make you the opposite of a patriot?

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So it's not a cheap shot to call me the opposite of a patriot? (Which is unpatriotic by the way) Donating my time? How do you know I don't? And yes people can have opinions absolutely. But they need to see people as people. It's easy to dismiss 'boat people' as queue jumpers etc because they are different. They speak a different language and have different coloured skin. I wonder how different our opinions would be if they were English, Canadian or Americans trying to come here?

The world is a bad place at the moment. Stopping arrivals by boat will only happen by dealing with the situations within countries where people are being persecuted. Turning back the boats just makes us inhumane. It's not our problem so someone else can deal with it.

I know, let's send them all to Papua New Guinea where 1 in 2 women under 16 are raped. There's a great spot to bring up a family.

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Originally Posted by richard4u2

do you think there should be an x number of peoples coming to Australia that we can support and then no more or do you think if 5 million wanted to come to Australia that will be okay

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The problem with placing a number on the issue or a percentage is that it doesn't solve the underlying problem. Personally I think we should take as many genuine refugees in as we can. But continuing just to do that is problematic as some have stated as Australia by itself cannot solve all of the underlying issues. We cannot deal with all of the worlds refugees and I'm not saying we should. We need to work harder as a global community to solve the issue. Why are people trying to get here by boat? Solve that one and then we solve the cause of the issue. Not band aid the problem.

I'm not in the big house that gets to decide how many people we can let in. But I do know that the majority of Australians are not willing to sacrifice even a little to help others in need.

Now I wait for the post-war analogies and how I've offended those whose relatives died to protect our way of living. That's usually the next step after calling me a bleeding heart :wasntme:

I'm only about a third ot the way though this thread, but I didn't know that we invaded Lebanon, Iran and Sri Lanka where a large proportion of our boat people came from.

It goes back to the issue that we cant solve the ills of the World and even if we could we neither have the water for them all to drink nor the industry to employ them all. Unless Australians are prepared to lower our salaries to be able to compete with Bangladesh, Thailand or Pakistan we will never have the economy to support these peoples with jobs.